LIBRARY 

JNJVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SANTA' CRUZ 


THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 
JOHN   FISKE 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  I 


THE 

LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 
JOHN  FISKE 

BY 

JOHN   SPENCER  CLARK 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


VOLUME    I 


Disce  ut  semper  victurusyvivf  ut  eras  moriturus 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
fitoerj&ib*  ^tejjjS 
1917  • 


COPYRIGHT,    1917,   BY  ABBY  M.    FISKE 
ALI.   RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  December  II 


TO 
ABBY  MORGAN  FISKE 

THE  WIFE  OF  JOHN  FISKE  AND  THE  INSPIRER 
OF  MUCH  THAT  IS  FINEST  IN  HIS  WRITINGS 

THIS  WORK  IS  DEDICATED 


/75 


V 


.1 


PREFACE 

JOHN  FISKE  was  not  a  voluminous  correspondent; 
hence  we  have  not  many  self-revealing  letters  to 
intimate  ^  friends  and  kindred  thinkers,  regarding 
his  wrestling  with  some  of  the  great  themes  which 
from  time  to  time  engaged  his  mind.  The  absence 
of  these  desirable  data  is,  however,  greatly  mini- 
mized by  the  possession  of  his  deeply  interesting 
personal  letters  to  his  wife  and  his  mother,  and  of 
his  diaries  in  which  the  innermost  feelings  of  his 
nature  are  disclosed.  These,  taken  in  connection 
with  his  published  writings,  enable  us  to  make  out 
quite  a  full  record  of  his  subjective  activities,  which, 
when  considered  in  relation  to  the  seething  thought 
of  the  time  as  a  stimulating  objective  environment, 
yield  copious  material  for  a  "Life"  of  Fiske  in  both 
its  unity  and  its  variety. 

In  the  correspondence  between  Fiske  and  Spen- 
cer, and  in  the  letters  of  Fiske  describing  Spencer, 
we  get  pleasanter  impressions  of  Spencer's  person- 
ality than  from  any  other  source.  To  the  end,  Fiske 
was  thoroughly  loyal  to  Spencer,  while  immensely 
broadening  his  philosophy;  at  the  same  time  it 
must  be  admitted  that  Spencer  withheld  the  public 
acknowledgment  of  indebtedness  to  Fiske  which 
he  so  freely  admitted  privately. 


Preface 

In  the  preparation  of  this  work  I  have  been 
greatly  assisted  by  George  Litch  Roberts,  the  life- 
long friend  of  John  Fiske,  who  appears  in  these 
pages,  and  who,  after  an  honored  career  at  the 
bar,  carries  into  the  period  of  life  when  the  shad- 
ows lengthen  all  the  enthusiasm  for  science  and 
philosophy  which  marked  his  early  years.  Fiske 
and  Roberts,  as  they  came  to  their  maturity,  dif- 
fered somewhat  in  their  philosophic  views;  but 
their  friendship  was  never  broken,  and  Roberts  has 
cheerfully  aided  in  the  preparation  of  this 'work 
as  a  tribute  to  the  memory  of  his  friend.  To  his 
criticism  and  his  wise  suggestions  much  is  due. 

I  also  wish  to  make  acknowledgment  of  the  great 
assistance  I  have  received  at  the  Boston  Athe- 
naeum. My  special  demands  upon  this  library  have 
been  many  and  oftentimes  perplexing;  but  they 
have  always  been  met  with  the  utmost  considera- 
tion and  kindness  by  its  scholarly  librarian  Charles 
Knowles  Bolton  and  his  assistants.  No  small  por- 
tion of  my  work  has  been  done  in  the  alcoves  of 
this  fine  library,  overlooking  the  Granary  Bury- 
ing-Ground,  where  sleep,  in  the  midst  of  the  great 
city's  traffic  and  roar,  many  of  New  England's 
distinguished  worthies  of  years  gone  by.  My  ex- 
perience here  is  a  delightful  memory. 

JOHN  SPENCER  CLARK. 

BOSTON,  October  i,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

I.  His  PATERNAL  ANCESTRY  —  THE  GREEN  FAMILY  —  His 
MATERNAL  ANCESTRY  —  THE  FISKE  AND  THE  BOUND 
FAMILIES .  .  .  *  •  I 

II.  THE  MIDDLETOWN  ENVIRONMENT — JOHN  FISK — THE 

FISK  HOMESTEAD 14 

III.  THE  FISK  HOUSEHOLD  —  BOYHOOD  AND  EARLY  EDUCA- 

TION (1847-1854)     ....     V   V    :.T   '.      .    25 

IV.  THE  MARRIAGE  OF  MRS.  GREEN  TO  MR.  STOUGHTON  — 

THE  CHANGE  OF  NAME  TO  JOHN  FISK  —  Two  YEARS 
AT  BETTS'S  ACADEMY,  STAMFORD  —  JOINS  ORTHO- 
DOX CHURCH,  MIDDLETOWN  (1855-1857)  ...  55 

.  V.  RETURNS  TO  MIDDLETOWN  —  PREPARES  FOR  ENTRANCE 

AT       YALE  —  GENERAL       READING  —  HUMBOLDT'S 

"  COSMOS  "  —  DAWNING      RATIONALISM  —  MUSICAL 

DIVERSIONS  —  PASSES  FRESHMAN  EXAMINATIONS  FOR 

i  YALE  —  DECIDES  TO  GO  TO  HARVARD  (1857-1858)     .    71 

VI.  SELF-PREPARATION  TO  ENTER  HARVARD  AS  SOPHOMORE 
—  WIDE  READING  —  BREAKS  AWAY  FROM  CHRISTIAN 
THEOLOGY  —  SOCIAL  OSTRACISM  —  LEAVES  MIDDLE- 
TOWN  FOR  CAMBRIDGE  (1859-1860) 104 

VII.  BOSTON  AND  CAMBRIDGE  (1860) 129 

VIII.  HARVARD  COLLEGE  (1860-1863) 147 

IX.  AN  UNDERGRADUATE  AT  HARVARD  (1860-1863)     .      .  193 

X.  FAILS  TO  GET  POSITION  AS  TEACHER  OR  AS  TUTOR  AT 
HARVARD  —  ENTERS  THE  HARVARD  LAW  SCHOOL  — 
ADMITTED  TO  THE  BAR  —  His  GENERAL  READING  — 
OPENING  OF  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SPENCER  —  MAR- 
RIAGE (1863-1864) 261 

XL  GIVES  UP  LAW  FOR  LITERATURE — PHILOSOPHY  OF  HIS- 
TORY —  ESSAYS  ON  LAWS  OF  HISTORY  —  GROTE'S 
OPINION  —  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SPENCER  —  NEW 

vii 


Contents 

ERA  AT  HARVARD— UNIVERSITY  REFORM— BRYCE'S 
"HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE"  (1864-1866)    .      .      .      .300 
XII.  THE   REFORM  AT   HARVARD   UNDER  WAY  —  FISKE 
MOVES   TO  CAMBRIDGE  —  DOMESTIC   AND   SOCIAL 
LIFE  —  REVIEW  AND  ESSAY  WRITING  —  DIVERSIONS 

—  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SPENCER  (1866-1868)   .  327 

XIII.  A  MEMORABLE  YEAR  TO  HARVARD  AND  TO  FISKE  — 

ELECTION  OF  CHARLES  W.  ELIOT  AS  PRESIDENT  — 
FISKE  CALLED  TO  LECTURE  ON  THE  POSITIVE  PHI- 
LOSOPHY —  ELIOT'S  INAUGURATION  —  WIDE  EF- 
FECT OF  FISKE'S  LECTURES  (1869)  ...  .341 

XIV.  RENOMINATED  AS  LECTURER  AT  HARVARD  —  SIGNIF- 

ICANT LETTER  FROM  SPENCER  —  To  DEVOTE 
HIMSELF  TO  THE  PROPAGATION  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF 
EVOLUTION  —  ACTING  PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY  AT 
HARVARD  —  STUDIES  AND  LITERARY  WORK  (1870)  364 

XV.  SECOND  COURSE  OF  HARVARD  LECTURES  —  CORRE- 
SPONDENCE WITH  SPENCER  AND  DARWIN — LECTURES 
ON  EVOLUTION  —  PERSONA  NON  GRATA  AT  LOWELL 
INSTITUTE  —  ASSISTANT  LIBRARIAN  AT  HARVARD  — 
AGASSIZ  ARTICLE  —  SAILS  FOR  QUEENSTOWN  (1871- 
1873)  •  •  •  ,.r'.:.  ...  .  V  .  .  380 

XVI.  DIVERSIONS  —  PIANO  PRACTICE  AND  MUSICAL  COM- 
POSITIONS—BEGINS COMPOSITION  OF  A  MASS  — 
PHILOSOPHIC  THOUGHT  AND  RELIGIOUS  FEELING  — 
DOMESTIC  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE  AND  PETERSHAM 
(1871-1873)  412 

XVII.  VOYAGE  TO  QUEENSTOWN  —  VISITS  CORK,  BLARNEY 
CASTLE,  LAKES  OF  KILLARNEY,  AND  DUBLIN  — 
REACHES  CHESTER  —  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ENG- 
LAND AND  ENGLISH  PEOPLE  —  A  HURRIED  TRIP  TO 
LONDON  WITH  HIS  FRIEND  HUTTON,  THENCE  TO  LIVER- 
POOL—  VISITS  THE  LAKE  DISTRICT  —  EDINBURGH 

—  SCOTCH  HIGHLANDS — CATHEDRAL  TOWNS  —  IPS- 
WICH—  CAMBRIDGE    (1873) 423 

XVIIL  IN  LONDON  AGAIN  —  TAKES  ROOMS  NEAR  BRITISH 
MUSEUM  —  CORDIALLY  RECEIVED  BY  SPENCER 
AND  OTHER  EVOLUTIONISTS  —  ARRANGES  FOR  PUB- 

viii 


Contents 

LICATION    OF   HIS    BOOK  —  DISCUSSIONS  WITH   SPEN- 

CER  AND  OTHERS  —  RELIGIOUS  IMPLICATIONS  OF 
DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION  —  PERSONAL  SKETCHES 
OF  SPENCER,  DARWIN,  LEWES,  GEORGE  ELIOT,  HUX- 
LEY, LYELL  (1873) 456 

XIX.  His  CONTINENTAL  JOURNEY  —  His  ORIGINAL  PLAN 
AND  WHY  CURTAILED  —  His  BRIEF  STOP  IN  PARIS 
AND  HIS  HASTY  RUN  THROUGH  FRANCE  —  His  FOUR 
WEEKS  IN  ITALY  —  SWITZERLAND  VIA  MONT  CENIS 
—  LES  CHARMETTES,  FERNEY,  GENEVA  —  ROUS- 
SEAU, VOLTAIRE  —  IMPRESSIONS  OF  SWITZERLAND  — 
DOWN  THE  RHINE  TO  BELGIUM  —  BACK  IN  LONDON 
FAREWELL  VISITS  (1873-1874)  \  .  .  .  .  .493 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOHN  FISKE Photogravure  Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  taken  in  1889 

HUMPHREY  GREEN,  GRANDFATHER  OF  JOHN  FISKE  .      .     .      a 

EDMUND  BREWSTER  GREEN  AND  MARY  FISK  (BOUND)  GREEN, 
PARENTS  OF  JOHN  FISKE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  6 

STADHAUGH  MANOR,  LAXFIELD,  SUFFOLK,  ENGLAND:  HOME- 
STEAD OF  THE  FISKE  FAMILY  FROM  THE  FOURTEENTH  TO  THE 
SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 8 

JOHN  FISK,  GREAT-GRANDFATHER  OF  JOHN  FISKE    .      .      .  12 

POLLY  (FISK)  BOUND,  GRANDMOTHER  OF  JOHN  FISKE    ...  12 

THE  FISK  HOUSE,  MIDDLETOWN,  CONNECTICUT      ~.      .      .  22 

JOHN  FISKE  IN  1850  (EIGHT  YEARS  OLD)    .      .      .      .  -    .  36 

From  a  daguerreotype 

FACSIMILE  OF  A  "GREEK  ORATION"  WRITTEN  BY  JOHN  FISKE 
AT  THE  AGE  OF  ELEVEN  .  .  .  .  .  ••  •  .  .  46 

HARVARD  COLLEGE  YARD      .      .      .      •      ,      .      .      .      .  166 

ABBY  MORGAN  BROOKS         *      .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .  248 

From  a  miniature  made  in  i86r,  shortly  before  her  engagement  to  John  Fiske 

HERBERT  SPENCER   ....      .      .      ....      .  292 

JOHN  FISKE  IN  1867       .      •      .      .      ...«'.      .  328 

CHARLES  DARWIN     "«     ....      .      .    '  .     ...  390 

EDINBURGH   .      ...      .      .     .      .     ...     .      .      .      •   '  .  436 

THOMAS  HENRY  HUXLEY      .      .      .      .      ...      .      .462 

FACSIMILE  OF  NOTE  FROM  HERBERT  SPENCER    .      .      .      .474 

GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES 48(> 

GEORGE  ELIOT 484 

SIR  CHARLES  LYELL       .      . 49<> 

The  illustrations  for  this  book  were  selected 
under  the  supervision  of  Mrs.  John  Fiske 


INTRODUCTION 

JOHN  FISKE  has  an  exceptional  and  honored  place 
in  American  literature.  He  was  a  ripe  scholar, 
possessed  of  a  great  fund  of  well-ordered,  accu- 
rate, useful  knowledge;  he  was  a  profound  philo- 
sophic thinker,  well  versed  in  the  world's  specu- 
lative thought;  he  was  an  able  and  fair-minded 
critic,  ever  alert  to  detect  the  good  in  men  and 
things;  he  was  an  eminent  historian,  gifted  with 
remarkable  powers  of  insight  into  the  cosmic  prin- 
ciples which  underlie  the  social,  religious,  and  po- 
litical organizations  of  mankind ;  at  the  same  time 
he  had  such  a  rich  endowment  of  aesthetic  tastes 
so  combined  with  exquisite  humor,  that  he  was 
keenly  responsive  to  the  beauties  of  nature  and  of 
art  in  all  their  varied  forms.  If  to  these  character- 
istics it  be  added  that  in  the  art  of  thought  ex- 
pression he  possessed  a  literary  style  of  great  sim- 
plicity, beauty,  and  power,  we  have  the  subjective 
causes  which  have  given  him  a  distinctive  place  not 
only  in  American  literature,  but  also  among  the 
deepest  thinkers  of  our  time. 

But  Fiske  was  not  only  fortunate  in  his  subjec- 
tive endowments;  he  was  equally  fortunate  in  the 
period  in  which  his  life  was  cast  —  the  latter  half 
of  the  last  century  —  in  many  respects  the  most 

xiii 


Introduction 

memorable  period  in  the  history  of  human  think- 
ing. His  life  was  synchronous  with  this  great 
period,  the  turmoil  of  which  in  philosophic,  scien- 
tific, religious,  and  social  thinking  raged  all  about 
him  as  a  mighty  objective  environment  and  which, 
breaking  upon  his  highly  endowed  subjective  mind, 
brought  forth  the  many  intellectual  treasures  the 
world  so  greatly  admires  to-day.  Indeed,  when 
the  life  of  Fiske  is  considered  in  its  relation  to  his 
subjective  endowments,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
his  objective  environment  on  the  other,  it  is  seen 
that  his  life  in  its  totality  was  a  distinct  embodi- 
ment of  the  highest,  most  comprehensive  definition 
of  all  life — <"the  continuous  adjustment  of  inter- 
nal relations  to  external  relations. "  * 

Hence  much  attention  is  given  in  this  biography 
to  the  environing  conditions  of  thought  which  sur- 
rounded Fiske  from  his  early  youth,  and  which,  in 
one  way  or  another,  served  as  an  impelling  force 
to  his  mind. 

Fiske's  life  on  its  productive  side  was  of  a  two* 
fold  character:  that  of  a  scientifico-philosophic 
thinker^combined  with  that  of  a  philosophic  histo- 
rian. He  did  not  live  to  see  his  contemplated  task 
in  either  form  of  activity  completed,  but  he  did 
see  great  and  significant  progress  in  thought  in 
both. 

As  a  philosophic  thinker  he  takes  a  prominent 
place  as  a  protagonist  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution, 
as  the  process  by  which  the  cosmic  universe  with 

xiv 


Introduction 

man's  place  in  it  has  been  brought  into  being,  in 
conformity  to  immutable  law.  As  consistent  with 
this  doctrine,  he  affirmed  four  important  corollaries: 
a  theistic  basis  for  all  cosmic  phenomena;  ethical 
principles  an  outcome  from  man's  social  experience ; 
man's  immortality  a  rational  hypothesis  from  cos- 
mic phenomena;  religion  the  rational  adjustment  of 
man  to  his  environment. 

In  the  realm  of  philosophic  thinking  Fiske  lived 
to  see  the  vital  problems  of  life  and  conscious 
mind  lifted  by  science  out  of  the  narrow  mythical 
categories  of  theology,  and  centering  around  the 
consideration  of  their  rightful  place  in  a  cosmic 
universe  where  matter  and  energy,  and  life  and 
mind  are  harmoniously  interrelated. 

At  the  same  time  he  was  cognizant  that  as  yet 
no  positive  knowledge  exists  as  to  how  the  two 
orders  of  physical  and  psychical  phenomena  of  the 
universe  are  interrelated;  and  also  that  two  radi- 
cally different  hypotheses  are  dividing  rational 
thought  on  this  supreme  point  in  philosophic  think- 
ing: the  one,  affirming  that  matter  and  energy  are 
ultimate  and  self-existing,  that  life  and  mind  in  all 
their  varied  forms  from  plant  to  conscious  man,  are 
potential  in  matter  and  energy,  and  that  they 
become  manifest  wholly  under  cosmic  conditions 
—  materialism ;  the  other  affirming  that  life  and 
mind  in  all  their  varied  forms,  particularly  in  con- 
scious man,  are  manifestations  of  a  force  or  power 
entirely  distinct  from  cosmic  matter  and  energy,  a 

xv 


Introduction 

force  imparted  to  matter  and  energy  in  some  un- 
known way  by  a  postulated  Infinite  Eternal  Power, 
the  Source  and  Sustainer  of  all  that  is  —  spiritual- 
ism. Fiske  did  not  leave  any  doubt  as  to  his  ac- 
ceptance of  the  latter  hypothesis. 

As  a  historian  Fiske  took  for  his  theme  the  un- 
folding of  one  of  the  great  epochs  in  human  his- 
tory: The  discovery  of  the  Western  World;  the 
transplanting  to  this  new  world  of  the  elements 
of  the  social  and  political  organizations  of  Europe; 
the  rise  and  the  establishment  of  the  Republic  of 
the  United  States;  the  reflective  influence  of  this 
Republic  upon  the  political  organizations  of  the 
world. 

He  was  only  enabled  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
the  great  historic  undertaking  he  had  in  mind,  with 
intimations  here  and  there  of  his  ultimate  conclu- 
sions regarding  the  fundamental  principles  which 
govern  political  development.  His  narrative  was 
brought  down  to  the  Inauguration  of  Washington 
as  the  first  President  of  the  great  Republic.  He 
had  fully  equipped  himself  for  tracing  out,  in  the 
first  century  of  its  political  existence,  through  the 
interplay  of  the  twin  evolutionary  forces  common 
to  all  forms  of  democratic  political  organization,  — 
local  liberties  or  differentiations  on  the  one  hand, 
combined  with  provisions  for  national  integration 
on  the  other  hand,  —  the  rise  of  powerful  political 
parties  whose  dissensions  culminated  in  a  great 
civil  war,  in  which  were  displayed  some  of  the 

xvi 


Introduction 

noblest  characteristics  of  humanity,  and  which 
was  illumined  by  types  of  personal  character  un- 
surpassed in  the  records  of  any  other  race  or  people 
—  all  culminating  in  the  firm  establishment  of  the 
most  powerful  political  organization  of  the  globe, 
a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people. 

Would  that  we  had  to-day  Fiske's  ripe  judgment 
upon  this  present  world  turmoil,  when  our  Na- 
tional Government  is  laying  its  hand  upon  every 
citizen  demanding  that  he  play  his  part,  not  only 
in  defending  his  own  interests,  but  also  in  doing 
his  bit  towards  making  the  political  condition  of 
the  world  safe  for  democracy. 

There  can  be  no  question  but  that  Fiske  would 
find,  in  the  despatching  of  American  soldiers  to 
contest  for  the  establishment  of  democracy  in  Eu- 
rope, the  legitimate  evolutionary  outcome  from 
what  he  had  affirmed  was  the  greatest  event  in 
human  history  since  the  birth  of  Christ:  The 
voyage  of  Columbus  into  the  Sea  of  Darkness 
in  1492. 


THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

OF 

JOHN  FISKE 

VOLUME  L 


THE   LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 
JOHN  FISKE 

CHAPTER  I 

HIS  PATERNAL  ANCESTRY  —  THE  GREEN  FAMILY 

JOHN  FISKE  was  born  at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  on 
the  3Oth  of  March,  1842.  His  father  was  Edmund 
Brewster  Green.  His  mother's  maiden  name  was 
Mary  Fisk  Bound.  His  father  and  mother  were 
married  at  Middletown,  Connecticut,  September  15, 
1840.  At  his  birth  he  was  given  the  name  of  Ed- 
mund Fisk  Green.  For  reasons  which  will  appear 
later  his  name  was  legally  changed  in  1855  to  John 
Fisk.  In  1860  he  added  an  e  to  his  surname. 

We  have  but  slight  record  of  the  family  of  Ed- 
mund Brewster  Green  back  of  his  father,  Humphrey 
Green,  who  was  born  in  Salem  County,  West  New 
Jersey,  October  15,  1770.  Humphrey  Green  was 
of  a  Quaker  family,  an  only  child,  early  left  an  or- 
phan, and  brought  up  by  his  grandparents.  He 
was  a  man  of  notable  personality,  with  qualities 
to  hand  down.  In  appearance  he  was  a  staunch, 
old-fashioned  gentleman,  of  large,  stalwart  frame, 
carrying  himself  with  that  dignity  and  self-respect 
characteristic  of  a  fine  military  bearing.  He  was  a 
free-thinking  Quaker,  with  a  mind  of  his  own.  He 

i 


John  Fiske 

was  noted  for  his  great  memory,  and  was  respected 
by  his  neighbors  as  a  man  of  wide  knowledge  and 
practical  ability. 

Humphrey  Green  was  twice  married.  His  first 
wife  was  Ann  Buzby,  of  Quaker  ancestry.  By  her 
he  had  two  children.  For  his  second  wife  he  mar- 
ried, February  19,  1807,  Hannah  Heaton,  of  Downs 
Township,  Cumberland  County,  New  Jersey,  a 
daughter  of  Levi  Heaton,  who  served  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  and  a  grand-daughter  of  the  Bap- 
tist clergyman,  the  Reverend  Samuel  Heaton.  At 
this  time  Humphrey  Green  was  an  extensive  land- 
holder in  Newport,  Cumberland  County,  and  had 
given  an  acre  and  a  half  in  Downs  Township  on 
which  to  build  a  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 
Subsequently  he  removed  to  Smyrna,  Delaware, 
and  settled  in  the  timber  belt  of  Thoroughfare 
Neck  where  he  farmed  and  dealt  in  ships'  timber. 
At  this  time  he  was  a  faithful  attendant  at  Quaker 
meetings  and  was  a  noticeable  figure  riding  to 
and  from  the  Quaker  Meeting-House  at  Duck 
Creek  Crossroads. 

Six  children  were  born  of  Humphrey  Green's 
second  marriage,  three  sons  and  three  daughters,  of 
whom  Edmund  Brewster  was  the  eldest  son.  He  was 
born  in  Smyrna  January  3,  1814,  but  later  went 
with  his  parents  to  Philadelphia  where  Humphrey 
Green  became  a  merchant  in  the  coastwise  trade, 
and  owned  vessels  that  plied  between  Philadelphia 
and  Norfolk.  Humphrey  Green  lived  to  the  ripe  old 

2 


HUMPHREY   GREEN 


His  Paternal  Ancestry 

age  of  ninety  years  and  died  March  12,  1860,  in  the 
full  possession  of  his  mental  powers. 

Humphrey  Green  was  a  man  of  means,  and  as 
Edmund  Brewster  Green  gave  decided  indications 
of  scholarly  tastes  it  was  decided  to  send  him  to 
Wesleyan  University  at  Middletown,  Connecticut, 
then  the  leading  Methodist  college  of  the  country. 
Accordingly,  young  Green  was  entered  at  Wesleyan 
University  in  1834,  in  the  class  of  1838,  and  his 
studies  were  mainly  in  the  literary  and  scientific 
courses. 

He  was  a  good  student  and  knowledge  came 
easy.  He  had  an  attractive  personality  with  very 
engaging  manners.  He  was  quite  noticeable  in  his 
dress  in  that  he  wore  the  Southern  style  of  soft  hat 
and  flowing  cloak,  which  were  in  marked  contrast 
to  the  stiff  hats  and  prim,  tight-fitting  coats  of  the 
Northern  students.  He  was  popular  at  the  college, 
and  made  friends  among  the  young  people  of  the 
town. 

On  leaving  the  University  Edmund  Green  read 
law  in  the  office  of  William  L.  Storrs,  of  Middle- 
town,  an  able  lawyer  and  a  judge  of  the  Superior 
Court  of  Middlesex  County,  Connecticut.  His 
predilections,  however,  were  for  journalism  and 
politics,  and  in  1840  he  became  the  editor  and  part 
proprietor  of  the  "New  England  Review, "  a 
weekly  Whig  journal  published  at  Hartford,  which 
was  then  one  of  the  two  capitals  of  the  State  of 
Connecticut.  The  "  Review "  was  a  journal  of  high 

3 


John  Fiske 

character,  and  in  former  years  it  had  had  for  editors 
George  D.  Prentice  and  John  G.  Whittier. 

In  the  mean  time  Edmund  Green  had  become  en- 
gaged to  Mary  Fisk  Bound,  who  with  her  widowed 
mother  was  living  with  her  grandfather,  John  Fisk, 
one  of  the  most  estimable  and  honored  citizens 
of  Middletown.  Young  Green's  acquaintance  with 
Mary  Fisk  Bound  began  early  in  his  college  days 
and  quickly  ripened  into  a  strong  attachment.  She 
was  a  young  woman  of  great  beauty  and  charming 
personality,  vivacious  and  independent.  She  had 
been  carefully  brought  up  after  the  New  England 
fashion,  was  well  educated,  and  possessed  marked 
artistic  ability. 

Soon  after  assuming  his  editorial  position  at 
Hartford,  Green  regarded  his  business  prospects 
as  well  established.  Accordingly,  on  the  I5th  of 
September,  1840,  he  and  Mary  Fisk  Bound  were 
married  by  the  Reverend  Dr.  Crane  at  the  Fisk 
homestead  in  Middletown.  The  young  couple  be- 
gan their  united  life  at  Hartford,  and  on  the  3Oth 
of  March,  1842,  a  son  was  born  to  them,  the  subject 
of  this  memoir,  and  was  given  the  name  of  Edmund 
Fisk. 

But  the  journalistic  venture  at  Hartford  did 
not  prosper.  Green  made  many  excellent  friends 
among  the  Whig  politicians  of  the  State,  but  the 
Connecticut  field  was  not  large  enough  to  satisfy 
his  ambition  —  it  did  not  give  full  scope  to  his 
powers.  In  1843  he  sold  out  his  interest  in  the 

4 


His  Paternal  Ancestry 

"Review,"  and  essayed  journalism  in  behalf  of 
Whig  principles  in  the  City  of  New  York.  He  found 
the  effort  uphill  work,  and  he  gained  a  very  limited 
and  precarious  income.  The  day  for  the  great 
Metropolitan  journals  with  their  large  editorial 
staffs  had  not  yet  come;  and  during  this  period 
three  master  minds,  James  Gordon  Bennett,  Horace 
Greeley,  and  Henry  J.  Raymond,  were  laying  the 
foundations  of  the  powerful  daily  journalism  that 
was  to  be.  Mrs.  Green  bravely  shared  the  struggles 
of  her  husband,  and  to  eke  out  their  slender  income, 
she  taught  in  private  schools  for  young  ladies  in 
Newark  and  New  York  City. 

When  Edmund  Green  and  his  wife  left  Hartford, 
they  were  glad  to  accept  the  offer  of  the  grand- 
parents to  take  charge  of  their  infant  son  until  they 
should  establish  a  home  of  their  own.  We  shall  re- 
turn to  the  son's  maternal  ancestry  and  his  Mid- 
dletown  environment  when  we  have  followed  the 
fortunes  of  Edmund  Brewster  Green  a  little  farther 
to  the  end. 

The  election  of  General  Zachary  Taylor  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  in  1848  and  his  inaugura- 
tion in  1849  were  great  triumphs  for  the  Whig 
Party.  As  Edmund  Green  had  for  years  been  an 
ardent  advocate  of  Whig  principles,  and  as  he  had 
strong  support  among  the  leaders  of  the  party  in 
New  York  and  Connecticut,  it  was  natural,  in  view 
of  his  labors  and  sacrifices  in  behalf  of  the  party 
principles,  that  he  should  turn  his  attention  to 

5 


John  Fiske 

Washington  for  some  substantial  reward  now  that 
his  party  had  come  into  power.  In  the  winter  of 
1849  and  1850  we  therefore  find  him  in  Washington, 
seeking  office  with  the  very  highest  credentials  from 
the  political  Whig  leaders  in  Connecticut  and  New 
York.  He  was  for  some  time  private  secretary  to 
Henry  Clay,  at  that  time  one  of  the  leading  states- 
men of  the  country.  He  applied  for  positions  in  the 
State,  the  Interior,  and  the  Treasury  Departments. 
He  was  strongly  commended  by  Mr.  Clay,  in  an  auto- 
graph letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as  one 
who  "unites  to  excellent  attainments  and  qualifi- 
cations for  business,  the  manners,  deportment,  and 
character  of  a  gentleman  of  honor  and  probity. " 

His  political  support  was  indeed  strong  and  of  the 
best  character;  but  the  Whig  Party  had  been  long 
out  of  office  and  the  scramble  for  place  was  great, 
and  the  new  Administration  had  to  face  a  series  of 
political  obligations  entered  into  by  its  supporters 
which  necessitated  to  a  large  degree  an  obliviousness 
to  purely  personal  claims.  It  needed  time  to  adjust 
itself  to  its  duties  and  to  its  political  obligations.  In 
the  summer  of  1850  the  situation  was  still  further 
complicated  by  the  death  of  President  Taylor  and 
the  accession  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Vice- Presi- 
dent Millard  Fillmore. 

Green  could  not  wait  the  slow  development  of 
political  manipulation.  At  one  time  an  important 
office  was  apparently  within  his  grasp  —  that  of 
Surveyor-General  of  Oregon.  He  had  been  advised 

6 


His  Paternal  Ancestry 

of  his  appointment  and  was  then  tricked  out  of  it 
in  a  way  he  could  not  understand.  Thus,  after 
several  months  spent  in  pursuing  illusions  of  office 
in  the  Treasury  and  the  Interior  Departments,  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Whig  Party  was 
ungrateful,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1850  he  returned 
to  New  York. 

The  year  1850  was  marked  by  a  prodigious  ex- 
citement, world-wide  in  extent.  Two  years  before 
gold  in  unprecedented  quantities  had  been  found 
in  the  streams  and  in  the  surface  deposits  of  Coloma 
County,  California.  These  discoveries  were  so  ex- 
tensive and  the  mining  so  easy  that  the  story  spread 
throughout  the  world,  and  started  an  immense  emi- 
gration to  California  across  the  plains  and  over  the 
mountains,  and  by  way  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 
Edmund  Green  joined  this  great  movement,  and 
sailed  for  Panama  on  his  way  to  San  Francisco  in 
December,  1850.  On  arriving  at  Panama  he  stopped 
to  study  the  prospects  for  business  on  the  isthmus 
incident  to  this  rushing  of  populations  to  the  new 
El  Dorado.  The  conditions  appealed  to  his  jour- 
nalistic proclivities,  and  he  at  once  began  the  pub- 
lication of  a  weekly  newspaper  —  the  "  Panama 
Herald."  He  was  measurably  successful  in  this  un- 
dertaking. It  soon  became  a  semi-weekly,  and  a 
little  later  a  tri- weekly  publication.  In  the  spring  of 
1852  Green  came  up  to  New  York  and  Middletown 
for  a  short  visit.  He  returned  to  Panama  in  June, 
1852.  On  the  4th  of  July  following  he  delivered,  at 

7 


John  Fiske 

the  request  of  the  American  residents,  an  oration 
at  Panama.  This  address  was  marked  by  a  good 
knowledge  of  American  history,  by  scholarly  taste, 
and  great  felicity  of  style.  One  week  later,  July  1 1 , 
1852,  he  died  very  suddenly  of  cholera.  His  loss  was 
greatly  felt  at  Panama,  where  he  had  gained  a  posi- 
tion of  much  influence  through  his  enterprise,  his 
probity,  and  his  genial  personality. 

HIS   MATERNAL  ANCESTRY  —  THE  FISKE  AND  THE 
BOUND  FAMILIES 

Having  given  the  paternal  ancestry  of  the  subject 
of  this  memoir,  and  having  seen  him  placed  in  the 
charge  of  his  grandparents,  we  now  return  to  the 
Fisk  family  at  Middletown,  to  trace  as  briefly  as 
possible  his  maternal  ancestry  through  the  two  New 
England  Puritan  families,  the  Fiskes  and  the  Bounds, 
which  were  united  in  his  mother. 

The  Fiske  family  was  of  a  pure  New  England 
Puritan  type.  It  was  descended  in  unbroken  lineage 
for  a  period  of  over  four  hundred  years  from  Simon 
Fiske,  Stadhaugh  Manor  Parish,  Laxfield,  Suffolk, 
England,  who  was  born  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II, 
—  that  is,  before  1399,  —  and  who  died  in  1463 
or  '64.  The  full  record  is  an  honorable  one.  In 
the  sixteenth  century  the  Fiskes  were  considered 
very  daring  and  troublesome  heretics.  John  Noyes 
of  Laxfield  was  burned  alive  in  1557,  by  order  of 
44 Bloody  Mary";  and  Foxe,  in  his  "  Booke  of 
Martyres,"  mentions  that  Nicholas  Fiske,  Noyes's 

8 


STADHAUGH   MANOR,  LAXFIELD,   SUFFOLK,   ENGLAND 

Homestead  of  the  Fiske  family  from  the  fourteenth  to  the  seventeenth  century. 
(June  4. 1880) 


His  Maternal  Ancestry 

brother-in-law,  visited  him  in  prison.  Cotton 
Mather,  in  his  "Magnalia,"  has  anecdotes  of  how 
these  heretics  were  persecuted.  Robert  Fiske,  fifth  in 
descent,  fled  during  the  persecutions  to  the  Conti- 
nent (possibly  to  Geneva,  as  that  was  the  resort 
of  the  Suffolk  Protestants  at  that  time),  but  after 
the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  he  returned  and  settled 
at  St.  James,  South  Elmham,  Suffolk.  Before  his 
flight  he  married  Sybil  Gold,  by  whom  he  had  four 
sons,  William,  Jeffrey,  Thomas,  and  Eleazer,  and  one 
daughter,  Elizabeth.  From  Robert  and  Sybil  came 
all  the  Fiskes  who  settled  in  New  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  Robert  Fiske  died  in  1602. 

The  daughter  Elizabeth  married Bernard 

of  Custridge  Hall,  and  was  the  grandmother  of  John 
Locke,  the  great  English  philosopher  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  descent  we  are  pursuing  was 
continued  through  the  son  Thomas,  who  married 
Margery  (surname  not  given),  and  who  lived  at 
Fressingfield,  Suffolk.  Thomas  died  in  1611.  He 
had  three  sons,  Thomas,  James,  and  Phineas;  and 
two  daughters,  Elizabeth  and  Mary.  The  line  was 
continued  through  Phineas,  who  came  to  Salem, 
Massachusetts,  in  1641,  and  moved  to  Wenham  in 
1644.  He  was  a  man  of  note;  was  constable  and 
selectman  of  Wenham,  captain  of  militia,  and  in 
!653  was  a  representative  in  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts.  Phineas  had  three  sons,  James, 
John,  and  Thomas,  all  born  in  England.  The  line 
was  continued  through  the  son  John,  who  we  find 

9 


John  Fiske 

was  constable  at  Wenham  in  1645,  and  in  1669  was 
representative  in  the  General  Court.  The  Chris- 
tian name  of  John's  wife  was  Remember.  He  had 
three  sons,  John,  Samuel,  and  Noah;  and  two 
daughters,  Elizabeth  and  Remember.  This  John 
died  in  1683.  The  next  in  line  was  his  son  John,  who 
was  born  in  Wenham  in  1654  —  the  first  Fiske  born 
in  Massachusetts.  He  practised  medicine,  and  in  the 
annals  he  was  called  Dr.  John.  He  married  Hannah 
Baldwin,  of  Milford,  Connecticut,  in  1682.  She  was 
descended  from  an  old  English  family  in  Cheshire. 
Dr.  John  moved  to  Milford  in  1694.  He  was  a  man 
of  substance,  as  appears  by  the  deed  of  his  estate  in 
Wenham,  which  he  sold  in  1693.  Dr.  John  had  four 
sons,  Phineas,  Ebenezer,  John,  and  Benjamin. 

Continuing  the  line  through  the  son  John,  we  find 
that  this  representative  of  the  family  was  known  as 
Captain  John  Fiske.  He  was  born  at  Wenham  in 
1693  and  was  decidedly  a  man  of  mark.  He  was 
town  clerk  of  Middletown  in  1722,  was  ensign  in 
1729,  lieutenant  in  1732,  captain  in  1735,  quarter- 
master of  the  Eleventh  Connecticut  Regiment  in 
1744,  representative  to  the  Connecticut  General 
Court  in  1742.  He  wore  a  wig  and  sword,  and  was 
41  very  stylish. "  He  had  a  negro  slave,  appraised  at 
a  value  of  £35.  He  was  twice  married.  His  first 
wife  was  Hannah,  to  whom  he  was  married  in  1716, 
and  by  whom  he  had  three  children,  John,  Hannah, 
and  Martha.  He  often  dropped  the  e  in  his  sur- 
name. He  died  in  Middletown  in  1761. 

10 


His  Maternal  Ancestry 

Next  in  order  is  Captain  John's  son,  who  was 
known  as  John,  Jr.  He  was  born  in  1718,  and  lived 
at  Middletown.  He  succeeded  his  father  as  town 
clerk  of  Middletown  in  1761  and  he  was  also  clerk 
of  the  Superior  Court.  The  records  of  this  member 
of  the  family  are  very  slight.  By  Ann  Tyler,  a  sec- 
ond wife,  he  had  a  son  Bezaleel,  who  was  born  at  Mid- 
dletown in  1744.  There  is  no  record  of  the  death 
of  John  Jr.,  but  it  probably  occurred  in  1777,  as  in 
that  year  his  son  Bezaleel  succeeded  to  the  town 
clerkship.  Bezaleel  was  married  in  1768  to  Marga- 
ret Rockwell,  by  whom  he  had  a  son  John,  born  in 
1772.  Bezaleel  Fiske  held  the  office  of  town  clerk; 
for  twenty  years,  till  1797,  when  he  was  succeeded 
by  his  son  John.  Bezaleel  Fiske  lived  to  the  ripe 
old  age  of  eighty-six  years  and  died  in  1830. 

Great  probity  of  character  is  conspicuous  in  the 
line  of  the  Fisk  family  we  are  pursuing:  for  this 
reason  the  following  lines,  written  by  Bezaleel  Fiske, 
in  his  eighty-fourth  year,  and  in  which  the  pleas- 
anter  side  of  the  grim  theology  of  the  time  is  some- 
what reflected,  are  of  interest:  — 

ON  A  WATCH 

Could  but  our  tempers  move  like  this  machine, 
Not  urg'd  by  passion  nor  delayed  by  spleen; 
But  true  to  Nature's  regulating  power, 
By  virtuous  acts  distinguish  every  hour  — 
Then  health  and  joy  would  follow  as  they  ought, 
The  laws  of  Nature  and  the  laws  of  thought  — 
Sweet  health  to  pass  the  present  moments  o'er, 
And  everlasting  joy  when  time  shall  be  no  more. 

II 


John  Fiske 

Bezaleel's  son  John  succeeded  to  the  town  clerk- 
ship of  Middletown  in  1797  —  the  fourth  Fiske  to 
hold  this  office  in  the  order  of  succession.  His  first 
wife  was  Polly  Merrill,  of  Killings  worth,  Connec- 
ticut, to  whom  he  was  married  August  10, 1793.  His 
second  wife  was  Olive  Cone,  to  whom  he  was  mar- 
ried in  1837.  By  his  first  wife  he  had  six  children, 
four  sons,  and  two  daughters.  His  second  child  was 
a  daughter,  Polly,  who  was  born  March  n,  1795. 
Polly  Fisk  was  married  in  1817  to  John  Bound,  of 
Middletown.  Of  this  marriage  there  were  six  chil- 
dren, two  of  whom  grew  to  maturity — John  Fisk 
Bound,1  born  in  1819,  and  Mary  Fisk  Bound,  born 
June  21,  1821. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Mary  Fisk  Bound  was 
married  September  15,  1840,  to  Edmund  Brewster 
Green.  Of  this  marriage  we  have  also  seen  that  a  son 
was  born  March  30, 1842,  who  is  the  subject  of  this 
memoir,  and  who  at  his  birth  was  given  the  name  of 
Edmund  Fisk  Green. 

The  Bound  family,  which  in  the  ancestral  line  we 
are  pursuing  was  united  with  the  Fiske  family  in 
1817  by  the  marriage  of  John  Bound  to  Polly  Fisk, 
was  no  less  Puritan  in  character,  and  no  less  honor- 
able in  its  descent,  than  that  of  the  Fiskes.  Its  an- 
cestral line  runs  back,  through  the  Bound,  Francis, 
and  Hall  families,  to  John  Hall,  who  was  born  in 

1  Founder  of  the  financial  house  of  Bound  &  Company,  of  New 
York. 

12 


O     c 

n 


His  Maternal  Ancestry 

England  in  1627,  and  who  died  in  Medford,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1 701 .  From  one  branch  of  the  Hall  fam- 
ily in  Medford  was  descended  Francis  Parkman, 
and  thus  we  have  a  clear  family  relationship  be- 
tween the  two  eminent  historians  Francis  Parkman 
and  John  Fiske. 

And  now,  having  established  the  subject  of  this 
memoir  in  the  helplessness  of  his  infancy  in  the 
Fiske  family  at  Middletown,  and  having  put  in 
order  his  family  antecedents  which  have  revealed, 
on  the  paternal  side,  the  sturdy,  free-thinking, 
genial  qualities  of  the  Quaker,  in  contrast,  on  the 
maternal  side,  with  the  strict,  religious  character  of 
the  Puritan,  embodied  in  the  attractive  personal- 
ity of  his  mother,  we  will  leave  him  to  be  brought 
through  the  critical  period  of  his  infancy,  while 
we  make  ourselves  acquainted  with  some  of  the 
physical  and  social  characteristics  of  Middletown, 
which  served  for  his  environment  during  the  period 
of  his  boyhood  and  his  youth. 

Following  the  death  of  Edmund  Brewster  Green, 
his  widow,  Mary  Fisk  Bound  Green,  continued  her 
teaching  in  New  York  City  and  vicinity,  leaving  her 
son,  Edmund  Fisk  Green,  in  the  care  of  his  grand- 
parents in  Middletown. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  MIDDLETOWN  ENVIRONMENT  —  JOHN  FISK — 
THE  FISK   HOMESTEAD 

READERS  familiar  with  the  historical  works  of  John 
Fiske  know  the  importance  he  attached  to  the  town 
as  the  basis  or  unit  for  all  social  or  political  orga- 
nization. How  much  he  was  aided  in  the  develop- 
ment of  his  thought  in  this  direction  by  the  in- 
fluence of  the  environment  of  his  early  years,  we 
cannot  say.  This,  however,  may  be  said :  that  if,  in 
view  of  his  important  work  in  the  world,  a  place 
had  been  soughtwith  special  reference  to  its  salutary 
influence  upon  his  youthful  mind,  it  is  doubtful  if 
more  fitting  surroundings  could  have  been  found 
than  were  presented  by  the  physical  and  social 
conditions  of  Middletown  between  the  years  1840 
and  1860. 

It  was  a  typical  New  England  town  of  the  period, 
of  the  best  sort.  It  was  beautifully  situated  on  the 
west  bank  of  the  Connecticut  River,  about  sixteen 
miles  below  Hartford,  and  twenty-five  miles  above 
Saybrook,  where  the  river  enters  Long  Island 
Sound.  The  town  lies  on  an  elevation  of  land  which 
runs  along  the  river  for  about  a  mile  from  north  to 
south,  and  between  two  tributary  streams,  Little 
River  on  the  north  and  Sumner's  Creek  on  the 
south.  The  land  rises  from  the  river  in  a  gentle  slope 

14 


The  Middletown  Environment 

to  the  height  of  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  and 
then  forms  a  sort  of  plateau  extending  nearly  a  mile 
westward,  where  it  slopes  into  a  broad  valley  reach- 
ing to  the  Meriden  hills  beyond.  On  a  portion  of 
the  western  side  of  the  plateau  there  rises,  quite 
abruptly,  a  small  elevation  called  Indian  Hill. 
Along  the  whole  front  of  the  eastern  slope  the  noble 
river  sweeps  with  slow,  majestic  power  on  its  way  to 
the  Sound.  At  the  southern  end  of  the  slope,  and 
directly  in  front  of  the  southern  end  of  the  town, 
the  river  makes  a  sharp  bend  to  the  eastward,  form- 
ing almost  a  right  angle  in  its  course.  This  bend  in 
the  river,  the  slow  current,  and  depth  of  water  are 
the  conditions  that  gave  to  Middletown  in  years 
gone  by  a  commodious  inland  harbor  for  the  prose- 
cution of  a  prosperous  shipping  and  shipbuilding 
industry. 

The  main  street  of  the  town  runs  along  the  whole 
face  of  the  slope,  a  short  distance  up  from  the  river, 
and  parallel  with  its  course  from  north  to  south. 
The  principal  business  buildings  are  along  Main 
Street,  and  the  educational  buildings  and  the  pri- 
vate residences,  picturesquely  placed  in  broad,  elm- 
shaded  streets,  cover  the  upper  face  of  the  slope  and 
the  plateau  beyond.  Indian  Hill  has  been  taken  as 
a  cemetery. 

At  the  time  when  this  narrative  begins — 1840  — 
Middletown  had  about  ten  thousand  inhabitants, 
mainly  of  New  England  ancestry.  It  had  a  rich 
historical  background  of  colonial  experience  and 

15 


John  Fiske 

character  running  back  to  the  first  settlements  in 
the  Connecticut  Valley  about  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  by  seceders  from  "My  Lords 
the  Bretheren"  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  colonies, 
by  settlers  from  adjacent  Connecticut  colonies,  and 
also  by  seceders  direct  from  England.  Middletown 
itself  was  settled  in  1650,  and  its  founders  had  all 
the  strong  and  distinguishing  characteristics  which 
marked  the  people  of  the  great  Puritan  exodus. 
They  had  but  little  property  and  they  had  to  begin 
a  new  social  life  under  the  most  trying  conditions. 
Their  first  dwellings  were  hardly  a  shelter  from  the 
wind  and  the  storm.  Their  food  was  meagre  and 
their  clothing  of  the  crudest  kind,  and  they  were 
surrounded  by  tribes  of  hostile  Indians  who  natu- 
rally resented  this  powerful,  unbidden  intrusion  into 
their  domains.  The  privations  and  suffering  bravely 
and  cheerfully  encountered  by  these  early  pioneers 
cannot  be  conceived  by  their  descendants  of  the 
present  generation. 

The  demands  of  their  religion  were  of  the  first 
consideration  in  their  minds,  for  it  was  the  "heroic 
age  of  theology,  when  John  Cotton  used  at  bed- 
time to  sweeten  his  mouth  with  a  morsel  of  Cal- 
vin " ;  accordingly  we  find  in  the  earliest  Middletown 
records  appropriations  for  building  a  meeting-house 
twenty  feet  square,  with  provisions  for  calling  the 
people  to  service  by  the  beat  of  a  drum.  They  were 
none  the  less  attentive  to  matters  of  practical, 
everyday  life.  People  in  our  day  sometimes  wonder 

16 


The  Middletown  Environment 

at  the  strong  hold  the  protective  idea  —  the  pro- 
tection of  home  industry  —  has  among  the  people 
of  New  England.  The  idea  was  indigenous  among 
them  from  the  first;  it  grew  out  of  their  needs  and 
conditions.  The  early  records  of  our  New  Eng- 
land towns  are  full  of  provisions  for  the  promotion 
of  home  industries.  In  the  Middletown  Records  of 
1658  we  find  a  grant  to  "shomaeker  eagellston  "  of 
"a  peas  of  Meddow,  he  ingaging  to  inhabit  it  seven 
years  upon  it  and  also  doth  ingag  to  endevour  to 
sut  the  towne  in  his  trade  for  making  and  mending 
shoes/'  It  also  appears  that  to  get  a  blacksmith 
to  come  among  them  they  offered  him  a  hundred 
pound  lot,  he  pledging  himself  "  to  inhabit  upon  the 
land  and  to  do  the  Townes  worck  of  smithing  dur- 
ing the  term  of  four  years,  before  he  shall  make  sale 
of  it  to  any  other."  Wiser  than  the  protective  leg- 
islators of  our  day,  these  simple-minded  Puritan 
promoters  of  home  industry  required  their  bene- 
ficiaries to  render  specific  public  services  for  the 
favors  granted. 

For  one  hundred  years  — 1650  to  1 750  —  Middle- 
town  grew  but  slowly,  and  its  Records  during  this 
period  are  mainly  "the  simple  annals  of  the  poor/' 
save  where  they  are  irradiated  with  matters  pertain- 
ing to  the  Indians,  to  questions  of  church  doctrine 
or  discipline,  and  by  assertions  of  the  right  of  self- 
government  in  local  affairs  coupled  with  the  desir- 
ability of  corporate  representation  in  all  matters 
affecting  the  federation  or  well-being  of  the  Connec- 

17 


John  Fiske 

ticut  colonies  as  a  whole.  It  is  a  well-known  his- 
toric fact,  that  out  of  the  experience  of  the  practical 
working  in  unison  in  the  Connecticut  colonies  or 
towns  of  these  two  forms  of  political  association 
—  an  experience  which  clearly  demonstrated  that 
separate  communities  could  harmoniously  pre- 
serve their  autonomy  in  local  affairs  while  federated 
for  mutual  protection  and  welfare  —  came  the 
Connecticut  Compromise,  which  in  the  memorable 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1787  was  a  vital  fac- 
tor in  the  formation  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  gave  to  that  immortal  document 
its  two  most  distinctive  features  —  equal  represen- 
tation of  States,  coupled  with  a  representation  of 
the  people  as  a  whole. 

By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  Middle- 
town  had  grown  to  a  population  of  nearly  five 
thousand.  It  was  larger  than  Hartford  or  New 
Haven,  and  was  the  most  important  town  in  Con- 
necticut. The  growth  of  the  New  England  colonies 
had  by  this  time  developed  an  active  shipping 
trade  with  the  West  Indies  whereby  New  England's 
agricultural  products  and  her  fisheries  were  ex- 
changed for  such  staple  articles  as  salt,  sugar,  mo- 
lasses, and  rum.  The  colonists  had  also  ventured 
into  the  East  India  trade,  and  Middletown  from  its 
situation  on  the  largest  river,  with  prosperous-grow- 
ing towns  and  well-cultivated  farms  on  either  side, 
with  a  commodious  harbor  easily  accessible  from 
the  sea  and  contiguous  to  excellent  facilities  for 

18 


The  Middletown  Environment 

shipbuilding  and  repairs,  was  well  situated  to  en- 
gage in  these  various  lines  of  colonial  commerce. 
Accordingly  the  town  became  between  1750  and 
1775  a  shipping  port  for  the  West  and  East  India 
and  China  trade  hardly  second  to  any  other  port  in 
New  England. 

This  trade,  with  the  shipbuilding  which  followed 
in  its  wake,  was  very  prosperous,  and  together  they 
brought  much  wealth  to  the  town ;  they  also  diver- 
sified the  occupations  of  the  people.  In  1770,  among 
fifty  persons  registered  as  engaged  in  business  on 
Main  Street,  seventeen  were  in  one  way  or  another 
—  as  merchants,  shipowners,  skippers,  rope-mak- 
ers, etc.  —  connected  with  the  shipping  of  the  port. 
What  is  particularly  noteworthy  in  this  record 
of  occupations  is  the  frankly  stated  fact,  that  a 
Captain  Gleason  and  a  Dr.  Walker  were  slave- 
dealers. 

This  prosperous  shipping  business  was  almost 
wholly  destroyed  by  the  Revolutionary  War.  It 
revived  somewhat  when  the  war  was  over,  but  ow- 
ing to  the  changed  conditions  of  commercial  inter- 
course with  other  nations  that  followed  upon  the 
establishment  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  the  new  spirit  that  entered  into  the 
commercial  relations  between  the  people  of  the  re- 
spective States,  Middletown  was,  by  its  isolation 
from  the  sea,  heavily  handicapped  for  meeting  the 
new  conditions  in  competition  with  the  larger  and 
more  accessible  ports  of  Boston,  Providence,  New 

19 


John  Fiske 

York,  and  Philadelphia.  Consequently,  in  1840, 
the  shipping  business  of  Middletown  was  but  a  re- 
minder of  a  former  prosperity. 

The  manufacturing  period  of  later  years,  involv- 
ing corporate  management  and  entailing  large 
numbers  of  foreign  laborers  and  trade-union  as- 
sociations, had  not  yet  set  in.  The  few  industries 
that  existed  were  small  and  had  grown  up  with  the 
shipping  industry  or  were  the  outgrowth  of  local 
needs  or  of  limited  individual  enterprise.  In  1840 
the  town  had  not  entirely  differentiated  itself  from 
the  country;  and  on  market  days  Main  Street,  alive 
with  farmers  whose  loaded  trams  gave  ample  evi- 
dence of  the  rich  agricultural  country,  also  testified 
to  the  existence  still  of  barter  trade  between  the 
farmer  and  the  storekeeper  or  trader.  It  was,  more- 
over, the  day  of  stage-coaches,  and  the  only  means 
of  public  transportation  to  the  interior,  to  Hart- 
ford or  New  Haven,  to  Providence  or  Boston,  was 
by  stages,  and  their  arrival  and  departure  were 
matters  of  no  little  interest  in  the  daily  life  of  the 
town.  Then,  too,  Middletown  was  the  county  seat 
of  Middlesex  County  and  when  the  courts  were  in 
session  another  centre  of  interest  was  created;  if  a 
noted  case  was  being  tried,  the  whole  town  became 
interested  in  the  result. 

In  this  community  in  1840  the  people  were  well- 
to-do  and  the  social  life  was  as  yet  unstratified. 
The  contrasts  of  great  wealth  on  the  one  hand  and 
of  poverty  on  the  other  did  not  exist.  The  people 

20 


The  Middletown  Environment 

generally  knew  each  other,  as  well  as  their  family 
histories,  and  personal  interests  were  freely  inter- 
mingled. The  descendants  of  the  prosperous  mer- 
chants, shipowners,  and  traders  of  the  colonial  days 
were  numerous  and  among  them  were  persons  of 
education  and  character,  who,  with  their  moderate 
fortunes  of  inherited  wealth  well  invested,  and  their 
comfortable  style  of  living,  gave  a  quiet,  refining 
influence  to  the  social  life  of  the  town.  This  circle 
had  been  increased  by  well-to-do  families  from  other 
places  who  had  been  attracted  to  Middletown  by 
reason  of  its  delightful  location,  its  well-shaded, 
beautiful  streets,  its  healthfulness,  and  its  many 
comfortable  homes,  so  that  in  1840  it  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  residential  towns  in  New  England. 

It  can  also  be  said  that  Middletown  comprised  a 
religious  community  of  a  distinctly  New  England 
character.  The  Sabbath  was  duly  respected,  and 
attendance  at  prayer  meeting  and  church  was  uni- 
versal. In  the  social  life  of  the  town,  church  mem- 
bership was  an  indispensable  prerequisite  for  social 
recognition.  There  were  six  churches  — two  ortho- 
dox Congregational,  one  Episcopal,  one  Baptist, 
and  two  Methodist  —  in  which  were  presented  four 
phases  of  evangelical  faith  and  doctrine.  Among 
these  churches  the  Episcopal  and  the  two  Congre- 
gational churches  were  the  more  prominent  by  rea- 
son of  the  greater  number  and  the  social  standing  of 
their  members.  The  preaching  in  all  these  churches 
was  of  the  strictest  evangelical  character,  and  in  the 

21 


John  Fiske 

Congregational  churches  particularly  the  grim 
theology  of  John  Calvin  and  Jonathan  Edwards 
was  emphasized  more  than  the  simple,  humanizing 
religion  of  Jesus. 

The  Wesleyan  University  —  a  Methodist  college 
—  was  also  an  important  factor  in  the  social  and 
religious  influences  of  the  town,  by  reason  of  the 
number  of  students  and  the  learning  and  high 
character  of  members  of  the  faculty.  In  later  years 
the  University  has  greatly  broadened  in  its  ideals  of 
religious  truth,  but  at  the  period  we  are  now  con- 
sidering, it  was  the  express  purpose  of  the  institu- 
tion to  present  knowledge  bound  in  the  fetters  of  a 
particular  scheme  of  theology. 

In  this  community  of  good  citizens,  among  the 
remarkable  men  of  that  day,  and  in  some  respects 
the  most  remarkable,  was  John  Fisk.  He  was  town 
clerk  and  treasurer,  clerk  of  the  Superior  Court, , 
county  treasurer  and  clerk  of  probate  at  the  same 
time,  —  five  different  offices  which  he  filled  with 
ability  and  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  public.  The 
great  and  growing  confidence  reposed  in  him  was 
shown  in  the  fact  that  just  previous  to  his  death  in 
1847  he  had  been  elected  town  clerk  and  treasurer 
for  the  fiftieth  year  in  succession.  He  was  in  very 
truth  a  walking  encyclopaedia  of  the  town's  civic 
affairs.  He  was  a  member  of  the  First  Congrega- 
tional Church  and  took  part  in  all  its  activities. 
John  Fisk  was  a  great  reader  of  good  literature  and 
was  especially  fond  of  the  Waverley  Novels,  often 

22 


The  Fisk  Homestead 

carrying  one  in  his  pocket  so  that  when  leisure 
moments  came  in  the  course  of  his  official  duties 
he  could  amuse  himself  by  dipping  into  its  pages. 

Judge  William  D.  Shipman,  an  honored  member 
of  the  New  York  Bar,  had  occasion  to  practise  in 
the  Middletown  courts  at  this  period.  Fifty  years 
after  he  was  a  great  admirer  of  the  writings  of  John 
Fiske.  In  a  letter  to  Fiske's  mother,  Mrs.  E.  W. 
Stoughton,  anent  her  son's  philosophical  works, 
dated  October  23,  1896,  he  gives  the  following  pen- 
picture  of  John  Fisk,  the  old  town  clerk  and  the 
clerk  of  the  Superior  Court:  "  Whenever  I  see  the 
name  of  John  Fiske,  I  strike  off  the  final '  e '  in  Fiske 
and  my  memory  goes  back  to  his  great-grandfather 
when  the  latter  was  clerk  of  the  courts  in  Middlesex 
County  and  clerk  of  pretty  much  all  the  municipal, 
judicial,  and  ecclesiastical  organizations  in  Middle- 
town.  I  recall  his  visage,  his  snuff-colored  clothes, 
his  gold-bowed  spectacles,  and  the  quiet  way  in 
which  he  swore  the  witnesses  and  did  his  other 
clerical  duties,  even  in  a  case  involving  a  death  pen- 
alty, and  then  took  a  novel  from  his  pocket  and  se- 
renely read  while  great  lawyers  were  contending  at 
the  bar." 

John  Fisk  was  moderately  well-to-do.  Being 
a  frugal  liver,  he  had  managed  to  accumulate 
from  the  returns  of  his  various  public  offices  a 
small  competence,  and  he  lived  in  a  modest  way 
in  a  very  comfortable  house  on  Union  Street.  In 
1840  he  built  himself  a  more  commodious  house 

23 


John  Fiske 

on  Hanover  Street,  a  most  desirable  location,  with 
fine  spreading  elms  in  front,  and  with  ample  grounds 
in  the  rear,  over  which  there  was  an  extended  view 
down  the  broad,  slowly  flowing  river  with  the  eastern 
hills  beyond.  It  was  in  his  former  house  on  Union 
Street  that  his  granddaughter,  Mary  Fisk  Bound, 
was  married  to  Edmund  Brewster  Green  on  the  isth 
of  September,  1840.  It  was  to  the  Hanover  Street 
home  that  their  son,  the  subject  of  this  memoir, 
was  brought  in  the  autumn  of  1842  bearing  poten- 
tially in  his  infantile  brain  the  strong,  virile  traits 
of  the  Quaker  and  the  Puritan. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  FISK  HOUSEHOLD  —  BOYHOOD  AND 
EARLY  EDUCATION 

1847-1854 

THE  Fisk  household  in  1842  consisted  of  John  Fisk, 
the  town  clerk,  "a  jolly,  fun-loving  old  man";  his 
second  wife,  Olive  Cone  Fisk,  "  the  dearest,  heartiest 
soul  in  the  world";  Polly  Fisk  Bound,  John  Fisk's 
daughter  by  his  first  wife  and  grandmother  to  the 
infant  boy,  "a  little,  alert  old  lady,  very  refined  and 
beautiful";  and  four  sons,  Henry,  John,  Charles, 
and  Frederick.  Charles  was  a  civil  engineer.  It  was 
an  orthodox  family  of  the  liberal  sort,  and  all  the 
members  attended  the  First  or  North  Congrega- 
tional Church  of  Middle  town. 

John  Fisk,  as  has  been  said,  was  a  great  reader, 
and  in  the  house  were  many  books  of  a  stimulat- 
ing character  to  a  young,  inquiring  mind.  There 
were  the  Bible,  with  the  standard  orthodox  Com- 
mentaries; "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  that  simple  yet 
powerful  dramatization  of  Christian  character  and 
experience,  which  has  a  place  in  English  religious 
literature  second  only  to  the  Bible;  and  that  vol- 
ume so  consolatory  to  the  believer  in  Calvinistic 
theology,  Baxter's  "Saints'  Rest."  For  histories 
there  were  Josephus  with  its  Christian  interpel- 

25 


John  Fiske 

lation,  Rollin's  "Ancient  History/'  Goldsmith's 
"Greece,"  Froissart,  Gibbon's  "Rome,"  Robert- 
son's "Charles  V,"  with  its  masterly  introduction 
of  European  history,  Prescott  and  Hume.  In  bi- 
ography there  were  Plutarch's  "Lives";  the  Lives 
of  many  religious  worthies,  including  John  Calvin 
and  Jonathan  Edwards;  Sparks's  "Life  of  Wash- 
ington" was  also  there.  In  general  literature  there 
were  the  "Iliad,"  the  "Arabian  Nights,"  "Don 
Quixote,"  and  the  works  of  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Pope,  and  Walter  Scott.  To  these  should  be  added 
the  textbooks  of  Henry  Fisk  on  English  and  Latin 
grammar,  mathematics,  physics,  chemistry,  and  as- 
tronomy.1 

In  this  family  and  with  these  surroundings  Mary 
Fisk  Bound  had  grown  to  womanhood  shedding 
the  charms  of  her  attractive  personality  over  the 
entire  household,  and  her  early  marriage  left  a  sad 
void  in  the  family  circle. 

Under  the  tender  care  of  his  grandparents,  Ed- 
mund Fisk  Green  emerges  for  our  notice,  when 
about  four  years  of  age,  a  slender,  shy,  open-eyed, 
inquisitive  boy,  with  an  extraordinary  memory  and 
an  insatiable  desire  to  know  about  things.  He 
seemed  not  to  forget  anything  that  came  under  his 
observation,  and  he  had  already  learned  to  read, 
mainly  by  his  own  efforts.  To  see  a  book  or  a 

1  This  list  of  books  should  be  particularly  noted ;  for,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  mind  whose  unfolding  we  are  to  trace,  nearly  all  of 
these  works  were  put  under  tribute. 

26 


Boyhood 

newspaper  excited  his  curiosity,  and  to  have  a  per- 
son read  from  either  using  words,  some  of  which 
he  understood,  excited  him  still  more.  When  a  story 
was  read  to  him,  he  became  as  deeply  interested 
in  the  process  of  reading  as  in  the  story  itself  —  he 
wanted  to  know  how  the  reader  could  tell  just  those 
words  in  the  print.  When  it  was  explained,  and  he 
was  shown  how  words  differed  from  each  other,  he 
began  working  by  himself  —  picking  out  words,  and 
then  running  to  his  grandmother,  or  whoever  would 
help  him,  to  have  them  named.  In  this  way  he 
soon  mastered  quite  a  vocabulary  of  printed  words, 
and  then  began  to  relate  them  as  in  speech.  In  fact, 
before  any  one  had  thought  of  teaching  him  his 
letters  or  sending  him  to  school  —  there  were  no 
kindergartens  in  those  days  —  he  had  taught  him- 
self to  read,  mainly  through  his  own  exertions.  We 
shall  see  later  that  he  learned  music  in  much  the 
same  way.  Furthermore,  in  these  beginnings  for 
the  mastery  of  his  native  English  language,  we 
have  foreshadowings  of  that  deep  interest  in  philo- 
logical studies  which  was  a  marked  characteristic 
of  his  mature  years. 

In  these  days  of  character-foreshadowings,  we 
should  note  his  great  regard,  let  us  say  his  deep 
respect,  for  books.  As  soon  as  he  had  learned  to 
read,  he  began  to  look  upon  books  as  the  most  de- 
sirable of  possessions;  and  his  pride  in  such  as  came 
to  him,  and  his  thoughtful  care  of  them,  are  promi- 
nent among  the  incidents  related  of  his  very  early 

27 


John  Fiske 

years.  As  the  story  of  his  youth  unfolds,  it  will  be 
noted  how  ready  he  was  to  sacrifice  everything  for 
books.  They  were  always  the  chief  measures  of 
value  in  his  mind.1 

When  Edmund  was  about  three  years  of  age  his 
grandmother  married  Elias  Lewis,  a  worthy  citizen 
of  Middletown,  who,  with  Sallie,  his  daughter  by  a 
former  wife,  became  members  of  the  Fisk  house- 
hold. Mr.  Lewis's  daughter  took  great  interest  in 
Edmund  and  encouraged  all  his  efforts  to  learn 
about  things  and  to  do  things. 

As  soon  as  Edmund  could  read  with  understand- 
ing, everything  in  the  way  of  print  that  came  under 
his  notice  had  to  yield  tribute  to  his  desire  to  know 
what  it  was  about;  and  then  he  was  equally  desir- 
ous of  telling  what  he  had  learned.  This  twofold 
form  of  mental  activity  went  out  in  every  direction. 
He  early  began  to  observe  the  activities  of  people, 
and  what  he  saw  others  do,  he  wanted  to  do  himself. 
In  these  early  years,  therefore,  he  was  interested  in 
his  grandmother's  embroidery  and  was  delighted 
when  he  could  lend  a  hand,  meanwhile  telling  what 
he  had  been  reading  about. 

Among  the  incidents  of  this  period  of  which  he 
retained  pleasant  recollections  were  the  semi-annual 
visits  of  Eliza  Cotton,  a  sort  of  peripatetic  boys1 
tailor  for  a  few  of  the  Middletown  families.  This 

1  This  respect  for  books  always  restrained  him  from  marking  or 
in  any  way  defacing  them.  In  his  Cambridge  library  the  volumes 
that  were  his  constant  companions  bear  only  the  marks  of  respectful 
usage. 

28 


Boyhood 

was  before  the  days  of  regular  tailors  for  boys,  or  of 
ready-made  clothing;  and  throughout  New  England 
there  was  hardly  a  town  that  did  not  possess  one 
of  these  indispensable  public  servants.  They  per- 
formed two  important  social  functions:  they  helped 
to  clothe  the  needy,  and  being,  as  it  were,  the  re- 
positories of  the  social  gossip  of  the  town,  they  en- 
tertained their  patrons  with  incidents  in  the  lives, 
and  particularly  in  regard  to  the  clothes,  of  their 
neighbors,  as  interesting  and  as  fully  embellished 
with  personal  flavor  as  are  to  be  found  in  the  present 
weekly  newspaper.1 

Eliza  Cotton  was  an  exceptionally  intelligent 
woman  of  good  family,  and  for  her  own  character 
she  was  greatly  respected.  She  took  great  interest 
in  Edmund,  and  he  became  very  much  attached  to 

1  This  peripatetic  tailoring  is  one  of  New  England's  lost  arts. 
James  W.  Brooks  in  his  reminiscences  of  Petersham,  Massachusetts, 
a  town  which  is  to  figure  quite  largely  in  future  pages  of  this  work, 
speaking  of  one  of  this  honorable  guild  of  craftswomen,  Mary  Ann 
Howe,  says: — 

"  How  familiar  to  some  of  us  her  big  shears,  and  goose,  and  press- 
ing-board, and  big  steel  thimble,  that  for  many  years  went  from 
farm  to  farm,  to  cut  and  stitch  and  press  the  clothing  of  the  farmer, 
and  his  boys,  at  fifty  cents  a  day.  How  her  keen  wits  gauged  his 
character  and  habits,  as  her  tape  took  measurements  of  his  taber- 
nacle of  flesh !  An  industrious  and  helpful  being,  the  product  of  whose 
honest  and  ill  paid  toil  was  many  a  generous  deed  in  life,  and  a 
handsome  sum  bequeathed  at  death.  How  rough  her  left  forefinger 
where  the  needle  pricked  it;  and  what  conscience  went  into  the  jerk 
of  her  linen  thread  as  she  drew  our  buttons  home  to  stay — an  alto- 
gether excellent  woman — although  it  must  be  confessed,  she  wrought 
such  a  similarity  of  expression  in  the  fore  and  aft  of  our  trousers, 
as  to  remind  us  of  the  breeches  of  the  little  chap  whose  mother  said, 
that  when  too  far  away  to  see  his  face,  she  could  never  tell  whether 
he  was  going  to  school,  or  coming  home." 

29 


John  Fiske 

her,  looking  forward  to  her  visit  with  pleasure  for 
two  reasons,  she  was  interested  in  his  books  and  his 
reading,  and  she  would  let  him  help  in  her  work.  In 
helping  her,  he  learned  to  sew  with  much  skill.  His 
interest  in  needlework  was  no  indication  of  effemin- 
acy in  his  nature  or  his  tastes,  but  was  prompted 
by  his  desire  to  know  how  to  do  what  he  saw  had 
a  useful  purpose,  and  also  to  be  helpful  in  the 
doing. 

Another  of  Edmund's  activities  of  these  early 
years  was  his  delight  and  facility  in  preaching  to 
his  grandparents  and  imitating  their  minister,  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Crane,  a  preacher  of  the  strict 
orthodox  school  who  gave  to  his  exposition  of  the 
orthodox  creed  a  manner  duly  impressive.  The  re- 
markable thing  about  these  personations  was  their 
accuracy  in  the  collocation  of  words;  whole  sen- 
tences, which  to  Edmund  must  have  conveyed  but 
little  or  no  meaning,  were  reproduced  with  great 
fidelity.  These  personations  were  not  prompted  by 
any  desire  to  burlesque.  His  active  little  mind  took 
in  the  religious  exercises  as  a  part  of  the  reality 
going  on  about  him,  and  back  of  all  his  expres- 
sion and  wholly  unobserved  by  his  elders,  he  was 
forming  conceptions  of  God  and  Heaven  and  Hell, 
which,  so  far  as  we  can  get  at  them,  reflect  in 
their  naive  truthfulness  the  materialistic  anthro- 
pomorphic preaching  to  which  he  was  an  attentive 
listener. 

He  has  given  such  direct  testimony  as  to  his  con- 

30 


Boyhood 

ception,  at  this  period,  of  God  and  His  methods  of 
judgment  that  his  words  are  well  worth  quoting:1 

"  I  imagined  a  narrow  office  just  over  the  zenith, 
with  a  tall  standing-desk  running  lengthwise,  upon 
which  lay  several  open  ledgers  bound  in  coarse 
leather.  There  was  no  roof  over  this  office,  and  the 
walls  rose  scarcely  five  feet  from  the  floor,  so  that 
a  person  standing  at  the  desk  could  look  out  upon 
the  whole  world.  There  were  two  persons  at  the 
desk,  and  one  of  them  —  a  tall,  slender  man,  of 
aquiline  features,  wearing  spectacles,  with  a  pen  in 
his  hand  and  another  behind  his  ear — was  God. 
The  other  whose  appearance  I  do  not  distinctly 
recall,  was  an  attendant  angel.  Both  were  dili- 
gently watching  the  deeds  of  men  and  recording 
them  in  the  ledgers.  To  my  infant  mind  this  pic- 
ture was  not  grotesque,  but  ineffably  solemn,  and 
the  fact  that  all  my  words  and  acts  were  thus  writ- 
ten down,  to  confront  me  at  the  day  of  judgment, 
seemed  naturally  a  matter  of  grave  concern." 

Perhaps  it  was  the  death  at  this  period,  Feb- 
ruary 17,  1847,  of  his  great-grandfather  John  Fisk, 
full  of  years  and  honorable  service,  and  with  the 
respect  and  esteem  of  the  whole  community  for  his 
upright  character,  that  served  to  impress  upon 
Edmund's  mind  such  a  vivid  conception  of  God  and 
his  method  of  keeping  account  of  the  conduct  of 
people  here  on  earth. 

In  the  ample  grounds  of  the  Fisk  homestead 
Edmund  had  a  plot  of  ground  given  him  for  his  own 

1  See  The  Idea  of  God,  by  John  Fiske,  p.  116. 
31 


John  Fiske 

cultivation.  This  garden  was  a  never-failing  source 
of  interest,  and  in  watching  and  tending  the  germina- 
tion and  development  of  plant  life,  he  not  only  made 
himself  acquainted  with  the  more  obvious  facts  of 
our  common  vegetable  and  flora  culture:  he  also 
laid  in  a  stock  of  direct  personal  observations  of 
nature's  processes  which  were  of  much  value  in 
later  years  when  tracing  the  theory  of  Evolution 
from  the  inorganic  in  nature  to  the  organic  —  that 
is,  the  beginning  of  life  and  its  development  through 
the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms. 

It  is  noteworthy  in  these  very  early  years  that 
Edmund  was  an  obedient,  dutiful  boy  with  an  in- 
nate consideration  for  others.  These  traits  will 
appear  as  distinct  elements  in  his  character  as  his 
life  unfolds.  We  have  simply  to  note  them  as  active 
at  the  very  beginning.  Closely  connected  with  these 
traits  was  another  very  pronounced  one,  which  was 
a  fitting  complement  to  the  others  —  a  strong  self- 
propulsion  towards  doing  useful  work.  He  seemed 
to  find  pleasure  in  his  tasks.  Never  was  it  neces- 
sary to  put  pressure  upon  him.  He  was  self-directed 
from  the  first.  He  was  a  remarkably  healthy  boy 
physically,  and  there  was  nothing  morbid  in  his  in- 
tellectual make-up.  While  he  was  not  robust,  he 
had  no  ailments.  He  loved  outdoor  sports,  and  was 
especially  fond  of  rowing,  and  as  soon  as  he  could 
handle  oars  he  had  a  boat  on  the  river.  In  short,  he 
early  presented  remarkable  mental  power  in  happy 
combination  with  a  healthy,  responsive,  physical 

32 


Early  Education 

organization  —  a  combination  that  enabled  him  to 
find  pleasure  in  both  work  and  play;  and  when  he 
did  not  have  agreeable  companions,  he  could  work 
and  play  by  himself. 

Edmund  began  going  to  school  when  he  was 
between  four  and  five  years  old.  He  was  sent  to  a 
private  primary  school  kept  by  a  Miss  Wilcox,  and 
he  was  so  slight  that  he  was  sometimes  carried  on  the 
shoulders  of  his  great-grandfather  Fisk.  This  was 
a  school  where  very  young  pupils  were  inducted 
into  the  elements  of  knowledge  after  the  methods  of 
sixty  years  ago,  when  all  primary  education  began 
with  the  presentation  of  the  abstract  symbols  —  in 
language,  the  letters  with  their  combination  in 
simple  words;  in  mathematics,  the  nine  digits  with 
the  four  forms  of  arithmetical  process,  all  learned 
mnemonically.  Penmanship,  oral  spelling,  compo- 
sition, some  reading,  and  a  little  geography  were 
included  in  the  course.  This  elementary  schooling 
was  continued  for  nearly  two  years,  and  Edmund 
proved  an  apt  pupil. 

But  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  his  studies.  He 
early  began  to  use  them  in  enlarging  his  powers  of 
independent  acquisition.  He  was  not  content  to 
limit  himself  to  school  requirements.  When  six  years 
old  he  could  read  readily,  and  as  in  his  home 
there  were  some  of  the  great  works  in  general  litera- 
ture, these  were  put  under  tribute  by  his  inquiring 
mind.  Even  the  dry  textbooks  of  Charles  Fisk  were 
examined,  "to  see  what  they  were  like."  At  six,  he 

33 


John  Fiske 

began  the  study  of  Latin,  under  whose  instruction 
does  not  appear;  and  at  seven  we  find  him  reading 
Caesar.  History,  language,  and  mathematics  were 
his  first  loves,  and  before  he  was  eight  he  had  read 
Plutarch's  " Lives,"  Rollin's  "Ancient History,"  Jo- 
sephus,  Goldsmith's  "  Greece,"  "  Arabian  Nights," 
"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  had  dipped  into  Shake- 
speare, Milton,  and  Pope. 

We  have  seen  that  during  this  period  his  mother 
was  engaged  in  teaching  in  New  York  City  and 
Newark,  New  Jersey.  Her  visits  to  the  Middle- 
town  homestead  were  frequent,  and  occasionally 
Edmund  visited  her.  As  soon  as  he  had  acquired  suf- 
ficient skill  in  penmanship  to  express  his  thoughts 
in  writing,  letter-writing,  telling  his  mother  of  his 
interests  and  what  he  was  doing,  became  a  source 
of  great  pleasure  to  him.  Fortunately  these  letters 
have  been  preserved,  and  in  them  we  have  a  rec- 
ord of  his  youthful  development,  a  record  of  his 
studies,  his  reading,  his  amusements,  his  ambi- 
tions —  all  put  forth  spontaneously  as  it  were,  in 
the  service  of  a  dutiful  affection,  a  record  all  the 
more  valuable  because  of  its  naive,  unconscious 
truthfulness. 

The  first  letter  is  of  date  March  17,  1850,  when 
Edmund  was  nearly  eight  years  of  age.  It  is  written 
on  both  sides  of  a  half -sheet  of  letter  paper,  and  with 
a  bold,  heavy  hand.  There  are  no  erasures  or  blots 
on  the  sheet.  It  is  the  letter  of  a  real  boy,  contain- 
ing a  mixture  of  local  incidents,  personal  experi- 

34 


Early  Education 

ences,  domestic  matters,  and  ancient  history.  His 
reference  to  Artaxerxes  indicates  that  he  had  been 
browsing  in  Rollin's  "  Ancient  History,"  or  Gold- 
smith's " Greece,"  or  Xenophon's  "Anabasis." 
Only  one  word  is  misspelled  —  "  witch  "  and  "  wich  " 
for  "  which."  The  following  is  the  letter  verbatim  et 
literatim:  — 

MIDDLETOWN,  March  17,  1850. 
Dear  Mother  — 

There  has  been  a  terrible  fire  about  a  fortnight 
ago.  Mr.  Johnsons  &  Mr.  Parmalees  and  Elliots, 
Mr.  Storrs  &  a  part  of  Mr.  Putnams  all  burnt  down 
and  several  other  buildings  got  on  fire.  Grand- 
mother lost  all  her  magazines  wich  she  had  brought 
to  Mr.  Putnams  to  get  bound,  &  yet  I  slept  through 
the  whole  of  it!  I  got  a  new  "Gladius"  1  the  other 
day  out  of  the  new  house  witch  John  is  building. 
There  are  12  men  out  there  to  work  and  every  one 
of  them  is  John.  I  am  tired  of  hearing  John  all  the 
time.  It  is  all  the  time  John  you  go  and  take  hold 
of  that  end  of  the  log,  and  John  you  go  and  take 
hold  of  the  middle  of  the  log  and  John  you  take 
hold  of  this  end  of  the  log  and  John  you  pry  up  the 
log  and  it  is  all  John  all  the  time.  There  were  4 
Artaxerxes  viz  Artaxerxes  Smerdis,  Artaxerxes 
Longimanus  Artaxerxes  Mnemon  and  Artaxerxes 
Ochus.  Don't  you  think  this  a  bad  letter?  The 
other  night  Bridget  said  there  was  just  enough  oil 
to  last  that  night  the  next  night  she  said  the  same 
so  I  asked  her  what  made  her  say  there  would  be 
just  enough  for  last  night,  and  then  say  so  again  to- 

1  Sword. 
35 


John  Fiske 

night.    Bridget  said  oh  I  brought  out  the  balance 
tonight. 

We  all  send  our  love. 

From  your  affectionate  son, 

EDMUND  FISK  GREEN. 

It  appears  that  a  few  weeks  later  Edmund  was 
visiting  his  father  and  mother  in  Newark,  New  Jer- 
sey. At  this  time  his  father  was  pressing  his  claims 
for  political  preferment,  and  as  he  had  promises  of 
a  substantial  position  in  the  government  service 
in  South  America  or  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  he  was 
hopefully  looking  forward  to  getting  his  little 
family  together  in  a  home  of  his  own.  This  pleasant 
prospect  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Green  is  indicated  in 
a  letter  written  by  Edmund  to  his  Grandmother 
Green  during  this  visit.  This  letter  is  of  special 
interest  because  of  its  self -revealing  character.  It 
clearly  shows  that  Edmund  had  been  dipping  into 
his  Uncle  Charles's  textbooks  and  that  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge  was  assuming  a  dominant  position  in 
his  mind.  The  letter  is  as  follows :  — 

NEWARK,  N.J.,  i9th  May,  1850. 

My  dear  Grandmother  Green  — 

I  am  very  anxious  to  see  you  and  Aunt  Arriana 
whom  I  have  never  seen.  Father  says  mother  and 
I  will  visit  you  with  him  before  we  go  to  South 
America.  I  am  going  to  Connecticut  on  Wednesday 
with  grandmother  Lewis  where  I  shall  have  a  nice 
time  cultivating  my  little  garden.  I  am  now  8  years 
old  and  have  read  about  200  vols  of  books  on  all 

36 


JOHN   FISKE   IN  1850    (EIGHT   YEARS  OLD) 
(From  a  daguerreotype) 


Early  Education 

subjects,  particularly  on  Nat.  History,  Philosophy, 
Chemistry,  Astronomy,  Grammar,  Mathematics, 
and  miscellaneous  things.  I  have  also  read  Spanish 
a  little.  I  can't  write  very  well  but  I  shall  improve 
by  practice  so  you  must  excuse  my  first  letter  to 
you. 

Give  my  love  to  Aunt  Roberts  and  my  cousins 
and  tell  them  I  hope  to  see  them  soon. 

I  remain,  dear  grandmother, 

Your  very  affectionate  little  boy, 

EDDIE  F.  GREEN. 

In  this  letter  all  the  words  are  correctly  spelled, 
and  the  penmanship,  while  clearly  legible,  indicates 
the  hand  of  a  boy  not  yet  brought  into  complete 
subjection  to  his  thought.  There  is  added  to  the 
letter  in  the  handwriting  of  Mr.  Green  the  follow- 
ing: "  Ed  has  written  the  above  letter  without  any 
assistance,  and  although  he  can't  write  very  well, 
he  can  talk  'a  few1  with  anybody." 

When  between  eight  and  nine  years  of  age  — 
November,  1850  —  Edmund  was  placed  by  his 
grandmother  in  a  private  preparatory  school  for 
boys  in  Middletown,  conducted  by  Daniel  H. 
Chase,  a  graduate  from  the  Wesleyan  University. 
The  public  schools  in  Middletown  in  1850  were  not 
what  they  are  to-day,  and  in  this  school,  which  was 
of  excellent  repute,  boys  were  prepared  for  busi- 
ness life  or  for  college.  It  does  not  appear  at  this 
time  that  any  definite  aim  or  purpose  in  Edmund's 
education  had  been  considered.  The  need  of  his 
receiving  systematic  schooling  and  the  convenient 

37 


John  Fiske 

location  of  the  school  were  the  reasons  for  placing 
him  under  the  charge  of  Mr.  Chase. 

Edmund's  regular  studies  at  the  beginning 
were  English  grammar,  Latin  and  Greek  gram- 
mar, arithmetic,  algebra,  geography,  with  attendant 
exercises  in  reading,  spelling,  penmanship,  and  com- 
position. It  is  worth  while  to  note  in  this  list 
the  entire  absence  of  many  studies  which  are  now 
universal  in  primary  education  in  both  public  and 
private  schools,  such  as  nature  study,  elementary 
physics  and  chemistry,  music,  art.  The  advantages 
of  these  latter  studies  Edmund  did  not  enjoy  until 
his  college  period  and  then  only  to  a  very  limited 
extent.  In  view  of  the  important  work  of  John 
Fiske  in  interpreting  to  his  time  the  truly  human- 
izing studies,  the  thought  arises,  in  passing,  would 
the  influence  of  his  life-work  have  been  greater  had 
his  early  educational  training  been  directed  to  these 
modern  "humanities"  as  well  as  to  language,  his- 
tory, and  mathematics? 

Edmund  continued  in  Mr.  Chase's  school  until 
April,  1853,  and  here  he  was  brought  into  close  com- 
panionship with  boys  of  his  own  age  as  well  as  with 
boys  much  older  than  himself.  His  studies  were  the 
first  consideration  in  his  mind  and  along  with  them 
went  an  ever-expanding  range  of  home  reading. 
He  readily  made  himself  amenable  to  the  school 
discipline  and  soon  distanced  his  classmates  both 
in  deportment  and  in  his  studies.  His  proficiency 
and  the  regard  he  received  from  the  teachers  made 

38 


Early  Education 

the  older  boys  jealous  and  they  took  various  ways 
to  annoy  him.  In  some  instances  they  combined  to 
abuse  him  as  only  cowardly  boys  will  when  they 
find  a  boy  younger  and  smaller  than  themselves. 
What  grieved  him  most,  however,  was  the  defacing 
of  his  books.  This  persecution  was  carried  into  the 
school,  until  Mr.  Chase  assigned  him  a  place  where 
he  could  study  undisturbed. 

This  persecution  by  his  schoolmates  tended  to 
drive  Edmund  the  more  in  and  upon  himself.  There 
are  no  complaints  in  the  letters.  He  is  interested 
in  telling  only  of  what  is  of  interest  to  himself.  He 
is  closely  observant  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  town, 
and  thoughtfully  listens  to  the  discussions  of  a 
question  that  then  divided  the  people  into  two 
parties  —  the  building  of  a  railroad  that  should  con- 
nect Middletown  with  other  Connecticut  towns  as 
well  as  with  the  general  outside  world.  There  were 
some  who  strongly  opposed  the  movement. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  long  before  the  days 
of  manual  training  in  education,  Edmund  had 
adopted  this  feature  in  his  self-imposed  educational 
course.  This  fact  appears  in  the  following  letter, 
where  the  information  is  given,  boy-like,  along  with 
matters  of  local  interest :  — 

MIDDLETOWN,  Sept.  17,  1851. 
Dear  Mother  — 

I  have  made  a  splendid  shop  out  in  the  wood- 
house.  First  there  is  a  large  box  set  up  on  edge  on 
that  bench  and  nail  down.  Second  there  are  posts 

39 


John  Fiske 

set  up  and  boards  nailed  across  from  post  to  post  so 
that  they  form  a  roof  and  two  sides  which  is  all  I 
want  as  the  front  is  open  and  the  box  forms  the  4th 
side.  In  the  box  are  shelves  to  put  tools  on.  Mr. 
Faxon  is  dead.  Dr.  Casey  is  going  away  and  they 
are  going  to  have  his  house  for  the  great  Central 
Bank.  They  have  tore  down  the  old  hotel  and  are 
going  to  build  up  a  new  one  in  stone  carve  work. 
They  have  built  up  that  place  where  the  Great  Fire 
was.  They  have  tore  down  the  County  Bank  and 
building  it  up  in  stone  carve  work.  We  all  send  our 
love. 

From  your  affectionate  son, 

EDMUND  F.  GREEN. 

In  this  little  shop  Edmund  found  occupation  for 
stormy  days,  and  here  he  made  many  things.  The 
near-by  shipyards  had  many  lessons  for  him,  and 
beginning  with  a  misshapen  sloop  he  progressed  in 
his  miniature  shipbuilding  until  he  had  made  a  full- 
rigged  frigate  with  a  full  complement  of  guns  —  the 
guns  being  specially  cast  for  him  by  his  friend  Mr. 
Wilcox,  who  owned  a  foundry,  and  who  took  much 
interest  in  Edmund's  ingenuity  and  skill.  This 
frigate  was,  indeed,  a  remarkable  piece  of  skilled 
workmanship,  and  for  it  at  a  local  exhibition,  he  re- 
ceived a  prize.  Among  the  treasures  in  his  library 
at  Cambridge  none  are  more  interesting  than  the 
few  mementoes  of  this  little  shop  —  a  miniature 
plane,  a  compass,  and  sun-dial. 

John  Fiske  tells  us,  in  later  years,  that  it  was 
largely  owing  to  his  visits  to  the  shipyards  and  his 

40 


Early  Education 

making  models  of  vessels  that  he  early  became  inter- 
ested in  geography,  astronomy,  mathematics,  and 
navigation  —  they  were  of  interest  because  they 
were  of  service,  they  had  to  do  with  the  sailing  of 
vessels  over  the  ocean. 

At  this  early  period  his  imagination  was  also 
actively  at  work.  In  one  of  his  letters  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1852  he  tells  of  a  dream  he  has  had  which 
he  calls  a  "Castle  in  the  Air."  It  is  a  boyish  ex- 
travaganza, and  is  of  interest  as  showing  his  grow- 
ing proficiency  in  English  composition,  and  also  as 
indicating  that  he  had  been  feeding  his  mind  with 
the  "Arabian  Nights  "  and  other  fairy  tales.  At  the 
close  of  the  letter  he  tells  his  mother  that  at  school 
two  other  boys  and  himself  have  taken  the  first 
prize.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  he  puts  the  names 
of  the  other  two  boys  before  his  own. 

A  few  days  later  he  writes  and  gives  such  an  inven- 
tory, as  it  were,  of  himself  and  his  studies  —  such 
a  genuine  boy's  letter  —  that  the  letter  is  well  worth 
giving  in  full :  — 

N.B.  When  you  find  a  star  after  a  word  you  must 
look  at  the  bottom  of  the  page. 

MIDDLETOWN,  Feb.  25th,  1852. 
Dear  Mother  — 

By  my  Geography  of  1850  London  is  2,520,000. 
I  have  o  debits  and  1200  credits.  I  went  to  Thads 
last  Sat.  and  slid  all  day  on  the  factory  pond.  Is 
there  any  moral  to  my  dream?  Next  summer  I  want 
to  study  Surveying,  Rhetoric  &  Psychology.  To- 


John  Fiske 

day  I  worked  out  a  very  difficult  proposition  in 
Engineering  2  more  in  Surveying  &  23  in  Legendre 
of  Geometry.  I  uhave  got  in  Arithmetic  to  the  cube 
root.  Have  you  received  Grandmother's  letter 
about  the  worsteds?  I  have  got  three  compositions 
on  shell-fishes.  If  *  you  look  in  my  last  letter  you 
will  see  the  ist  prize  was  Dickinson,  Griswold  and 
Green  —  but  Dickinson  and  Griswold  have  now 
I  Dr.  each  which  leaves  me  the  whole.  My  garden 
for  1852  is  55  ft.  long  and  31  ft.  wide.  We  all  send 
our  love. 

From  your  very  aff'nate  son, 

EDMUND  F.  GREEN. 
N.B.  Mr.  Crofoot  is  dead  and  buried. 

*  Feb.  20. 

In  the  spring  of  1852,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
Edmund's  father  returned  from  Panama  for  a  short 
visit.  He  and  Mrs.  Green  came  to  Middletown  and 
Edmund  returned  with  them  to  New  York  City  and 
saw  his  father' sail  for  Panama,  where  he  was  soon 
to  end  his  days.  Edmund  retained  a  delightful 
memory  of  this  last  visit  with  his  father,  and  in  after 
years  always  spoke  of  him  with  much  affection  and 
described  him  as  a  man  of  great  personal  charm. 

There  were  persons  in  Middletown  who,  seeing 
this  slender,  open-eyed  boy  on  the  street,  shunning 
the  rough  boys  who  took  delight  in  persecuting  him, 
thought  him  simply  a  little  coward!  If  these  per- 
sons had  known  the  standing  of  this  boy  at  school, 
had  heard  his  interested,  thoughtful  inquiries  in  the 
shipyards,  had  seen  him  ingeniously  at  work  in  his 

42 


Early  Education 

own  little  workshop,  had  known  something  of  the 
character  and  extent  of  his  reading,  and  had  they 
also  been  aware  of  the  fact  that  all  the  time  he  was 
writing  to  his  mother  of  the  things  uppermost  in  his 
mind  —  never  alluding  to  the  persecutions  he  en- 
dured —  they  would  have  formed  a  worthier  esti- 
mate of  him. 

It  is  one  of  the  fine  characteristics  of  these  letters, 
noticeable  all  the  way  through,  that  they  are  cheer- 
ful, hopeful  letters.  Edmund  has  something  before 
him  constantly  worth  striving  for,  and  the  letters  are 
the  record  of  this  striving,  with  many  incidents  by 
the  way;  and  while  they  were  written  solely  for  the 
eye  of  his  mother,  they  give  such  a  naive  mixture  of 
knowledge  and  boyish  expressions  in  gaining  it  as 
to  make  them  of  general  interest  as  the  record  of 
the  mental  development  of  a  healthy-minded  boy, 
who  loved  knowledge  and  his  mother  in  about 
equal  proportions. 

Here  are  some  reflections  derived  from  his  studies 
as  well  as  personal  experiences  in  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge  that  are  of  interest  as  showing  the  work- 
ings of  his  mind.  He  is  studying  astronomy  and  he 
desires  to  inform  his  mother  that  "  it  is  now  about 
5850  years  since  the  creation.  If  a  train  of  cars  30 
miles  per  hour  had  travelled  ever  since,  it  would  be 
284,000,000  miles  from  Herschel.  To  reach  him 
would  take  1000  years.  To  reach  Neptune  would 
take  6522  years  to  come."  His  economical  tenden- 
cies are  manifested  early  and  many  instances  might 

43 


John  Fiske 

be  given.  For  the  Fourth  of  July  this  year — 1852  — 
he  proposes  to  spend  but  twenty-five  cents.  But  his 
crowning  financial  operation  was  his  scheme  for 
getting  a  copy  of  Playf  air's  Euclid,  which  his  teacher 
had  recommended  him  to  study  in  place  of  Brew- 
ster's  Legendre  —  a  book  he  already  had.  The  story 
should  be  told  in  his  own  words :  — 

"So  after  school  what  should  I  do  but  go  poking 
into  Mr.  Putnams  to  ask  the  price  of  Euclid.  One 
dollar  was  the  Binomial  that  met  my  astounded 
eares.  Terrible!  !  !  I  could  n't  buy  the  book  as  I 
had  but  55  cents;  so  I  left  the  store.  The  next  noon 
I  saw  George  Smith's  skates  (by  the  way  he  was 
turned  out  of  school  for  being  impudent  to  Mr. 
Brewer).  At  the  sight  of  the  skates,  a  lucky  thought 
struck  my  head.  After  school,  I  took  my  skates  and 
went  up  to  Mr.  Atkins  and  sold  them  for  46  cents. 
So  I  went  poking  into  Mr.  Putnams  a  second  time 
and  got  the  book,  together  with  some  drawing 
paper  to  make  the  figures  on.  So  now  I  have  to  use 
all  my  instruments  because  there  are  some  things 
to  do  which  you  can't  do  with  anything  else." 

During  the  winter  of  1852-53  Edmund's  studies 
appear  to  have  been  Greenleaf's  Arithmetic,  Per- 
kins's Algebra,  Euclid,  Latin  and  Greek  grammar, 
and  Caesar,  with  geography,  English  grammar  and 
composition. 

In  April,  1853,  the  term  closed,  and  Edmund's 
schooling  with  Mr.  Chase  came  to  an  end.  He  did 
not  get  a  prize  at  the  close  of  the  term,  something 
unusual  for  him.  He  appears  to  have  made  a  few 

44 


Early  Education 

warm  friendships  among  the  boys,  and  to  have  be- 
come much  interested  in  outdoor  sports.  He  gives 
his  mother  a  description  of  the  game  of  "  roly- 
poly,  "  which  is  particularly  noteworthy  for  its 
clearness  of  statement  and  its  good  grammatical 
construction.  He  was  interested  in  boating,  and 
tells  of  trading  off  his  old  boat  for  one  three  times 
as  large.  We  get  glimpses  of  him  in  his  little  work- 
shop, for  he  tells  of  making  "a  seconds  clock  which 
will  go  very  well  until  the  weight  gets  half-way 
down  (about  one  foot)  and  then  I  can  do  nothing 
with  it.  I  have  taken  it  to  pieces  in  hopes  to  put  it 
together  so  that  it  will  go  somehow  half  decent. " 
His  penmanship  has  greatly  improved.  It  is  per- 
fectly legible  and  begins  to  show  something  of  that 
simple  elegance  that  characterized  the  handwriting 
of  John  Fiske  in  his  maturity. 

For  the  six  months  from  April  to  October,  1853, 
Edmund  studied  without  instructors  and  the  let- 
ters show  that  he  was  as  faithful  to  his  studies  as 
when  under  school  discipline.  In  one  letter  he  says  : 
"  I  study  Cicero  de  Oratore  Oratio,  ist  Collectanea 
Grseca  Majora,  Davis's  Algebra.  I  have  almost  fin- 
ished equations  of  the  ist  degree.  Flint's  Geometry, 
I  recite  to  Prof.  Nobody. "  In  this  letter  he  sends 
an  original  "  Greek  Oration  "  which  he  particularly 
requests  his  mother  "not  to  show  to  any  one  be- 
cause it  may  have  mistakes."  The  events  of  the 
intervening  years  have  given  this  bit  of  boyish 
mental  activity  an  especial  value,  and  it  does  not 

45 


John  Fiske 

appear  as  a  breach  of  confidence,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, to  give  this  "  oration "  in  facsimile. 
Greek  scholars  will  appreciate  it  as  the  diversion 
of  a  lad  eleven  years  of  age,  studying  without 
direction. 

In  addition  to  keeping  his  mother  informed  in  re- 
gard to  his  studies,  Edmund  tells  her  of  the  various 
incidents  in  his  daily  boyhood  life  —  of  his  going  to 
a  magician's  exhibition  and  his  being  called  upon  to 
take  part  in  some  of  the  tricks;  of  his  having  four 
shirts  with  bosoms  and  collars;  a  flowered  satin  vest 
made  over  by  Eliza  Cotton,  with  some  help  from 
himself;  and  of  his  grandmother's  giving  him  a  new 
broadcloth  suit.  He  also  tells  of  his  forming  a  boys' 
club  and  of  his  being  elected  president;  of  his 
rambles  in  the  woods,  and  of  his  wading  in  the 
beautiful  Sabetha  River;  and,  most  important  of 
all,  of  some  gifts  of  books  from  his  grandmother  and 
from  Mr.  Lewis,  by  which  his  library  is  increased 
to  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven  volumes.  In  his 
naive  record  of  these  various  incidents  the  begin- 
nings of  his  art  of  narration  are  clearly  observed. 

In  October,  1853,  Edmund  enters  another  private 
school  in  Middletown  conducted  by  a  Mr.  Brewer, 
—  possibly  a  teacher  previously  with  Mr.  Chase,  — 
where  he  continued  for  six  months.  Shortly  after 
entering  this  school  there  was  an  examination, 
Edmund's  account  of  which  gives  us  a  further  in- 
sight into  his  studies  and  his  proficiency. 

46 


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O  o 


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o^j          s,       *i 


J        *i 

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O 


Early  Education 

October,  1853. 
Dear  Mother  — 

This  letter  will  be  all  about  studies.  We  had  an 
examination  Thursday.  I  was  examined  in  Green- 
leaf's  Arithmetic;  Perkins*  and  Loomis*  Algebra; 
through  4  books  Euclid;  through  Hedge's  Logic; 
through  4  books  Caesar;  8  books  Virgil;  4  Orat. 
Cicero  and  the  Graeca  Majora;  through  the  Latin 
and  Greek  Grammars;  and  last,  but  not  least 
dreaded,  through  Greek  syntax. 

Mr.  Brewer  said  I  passed  an  admirable  examina- 
tion. I  am  reading  Sallust  which  is  so  easy  that  I 
have  read  48  chapters  without  looking  in  the  dic- 
tionary. My  school  report  was  thus  —  9  being  per- 
fection: Attendance  7:  Arithmetic  8:  Algebra  8: 
Composition  7:  Declamation  7:  Geometry  9: 
Greek  7:  Latin  8:  Logic  8:  Deportment  9:  Reading 
9:  Writing  9:  —  the  most  perfect  report  of  all:  none 
of  the  other  reports  were  above  4.  I  have  studied 
my  Sallust  this  morning  and  have  got  7  cr.  making 
54  in  all.  I  guess  I  shall  finish  him  in  three  weeks 
and  then  I  shall  take  Livy.  I  am  reading  now  about 
Jugurtha,  king  of  Numidia,  and  his  wars  with  the 
Romans :  Sallust  was  governor  of  Numidia  40  years 
after,  and  so  had  excellent  opportunities  of  knowing 
about  it  by  the  traditions  of  the  people  and  by  the 
records. 

From  your  affectionate  son, 

EDIBUS  F.  GREENIBUS. 

P.S.  Mr.  B.  said  I  was  a  better  scholar  than  he 
ever  had  before. 

P.S.  2.  If  you  will  bring  Anthon's  Xenophon's 
Anabasis  1.25  I  will  value  it  more  than  the  broad- 
cloth suit. 

47 


John  Fiske 

Edmund  was  so  earnest  and  faithful  in  his  stud- 
ies that  Mr.  Brewer  cautioned  him  about  studying 
too  hard;  evidently  without  much  effect,  for  the 
letters  bear  witness  to  the  great  expansion  of  his 
mind  in  various  directions,  so  much  so  that  his 
school  studies  seem  to  have  engaged  the  lesser  part  of 
his  mental  activities.  No  small  portion  of  his  spare 
time  was  given  to  translating  Caesar  into  Greek 
ahead  of  his  translating  the  Latin  into  English. 
His  reasons  for  this  self-imposed  task  are  charac- 
teristic—  "It  makes  the  translation  into  English 
easier'*;  and,  "I  like  to  see  the  Greek  letters  — 
they  look  so  handsome/'  He  was  fond  of  drawing 
maps,  and  read  history  with  the  maps  before  him, 
thus  visualizing  his  historical  acquisitions  as  much 
as  possible.  He  committed  to  memory  hundreds  of 
dates  of  important  events  just  for  mental  exercise. 
With  his  expanding  knowledge  he  felt  the  necessity 
of  having  a  systematic  method  of  noting  down  for 
ready  reference  special  subjects  of  interest  as  they 
came  to  his  attention  in  his  studies  and  in  his 
reading.  He  therefore  made  a  chronological  record 
of  important  events  from  1000  B.C.  to  1820  A.D.  as 
a  sort  of  historical  framework  around  which  to 
group  his  historical  acquisitions.  This  record  filled 
a  small  quarto  blank  book  of  sixty  pages.  He  also 
began  an  alphabetical  commonplace  book  which  he 
made  out  of  some  paper  purchased  with  seventy- 
one  cents  given  him  by  his  mother  for  spending- 
money.  This  record  and  this  commonplace  book 

48 


Early  Education 

have  not  been  preserved:  the  fact,  however,  that 
thus  early,  and  of  his  own  motion,  he  began  to  put 
his  knowledge  into  order  in  his  mind,  and  also  to 
systematize  his  acquisitions,  is  especially  worth 
noting  in  view  of  what  we  shall  see  later  —  his 
marvellous  command  of  his  wide  and  varied  his- 
toric knowledge. 

After  studying  with  Mr.  Brewer  for  about  six 
months  Edmund  appears  to  have  left  the  school  (in 
April,  1854)  and  again  to  have  studied  at  home 
without  an  instructor  for  about  a  year.  During 
this  period  his  mother  visited  Middletown  fre- 
quently, and  Edmund's  letters  are  fewer  than 
formerly,  and  less  definite  in  regard  to  his  studies 
and  his  reading.  Nevertheless,  in  the  few  letters 
that  were  written  we  get  interesting  glimpses  of  his 
daily  boyish  life  as  well  as  evidences  of  his  men- 
tal activity  expanding  in  various  directions.  And 
here  should  be  given  in  his  own  words  the  story  of 
his  purchase  of  Liddell  and  Scott's  Greek-English 
Lexicon.1 

"  By  the  beginning  of  1854  I  had  read  most  of  the 
Collectanea  Graeca  Majora  with  the  aid  of  Schre- 
velius'  Lexicon  in  which  the  meanings  of  the  Greek 
words  were  given  in  Latin.  This  I  found  very  in- 
convenient and  I  longed  for  a  good  Greek- English 
dictionary;  but  my  grandmother  thought  five  dol- 
lars a  great  sum  for  so  unpractical  a  luxury  as  Greek. 

1  From  a  manuscript  note  of  John  Fiske's,  in  the  copy  of  Liddell 
and  Scott's  Greek-English  Lexicon  in  the  Fiske  Library  at  Cam- 
bridge, written  in  1883. 

49 


John  Fiske 

I  then  began  to  earn  money.  Among  other  things  I 
learned  that  an  Irishman,  named  Hennessey,  would 
buy  old  bones  at  37  cents  a  barrel.  I  picked  up 
bones  here  and  there  till  I  had  got  five  barrels  which 
brought  me  $1.85.  In  other  ways  I  raised  my  fund 
till  it  amounted  to  about  $3.40,  when  my  grand- 
mother, seeing  my  determination,  suddenly  fur- 
nished the  remainder  of  the  $5.00  and  in  June  1854 
I  became  the  jubilant  possessor  of  this  noble  dic- 
tionary, which  I  have  ever  prized  most  highly,  as 
I  count  the  knowledge  of  Greek  one  of  my  most 
spiritual  possessions." 

A  panorama  depicting  various  incidents  in  Bun- 
yan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress "  came  to  Middletown  at 
this  time,  and  an  illustrated  poster  of  the  exhibition 
was  placed  in  the  post-office.  Bunyan's  immortal 
work  was  one  of  Edmund's  classics,  and  he  studied 
this  poster  carefully  as  he  daily  came  for  the  mail. 
So  impressed  was  he  by  it  that  he  made  a  reproduc- 
tive drawing  of  it.1  He  managed  by  pasting  to- 
gether several  small  sheets  of  paper  to  get  a  sheet 
of  goodly  size,  and  then  on  his  visits  to  the  post- 
office  he  would  fix  the  features  of  the  poster  dis- 
tinctly in  his  mind,  and  on  his  return  would  draw 
them  out  on  his  sheet.  His  drawing  is  of  interest 

1  Edmund's  reproduction  of  this  poster  has  been  preserved  and 
is  now  owned  by  Herbert  Huxley  Fiske.  It  bears  the  following  in- 
scription :  — 

"Early  in  the  summer  of  1853,  when  I  was  eleven  years  old,  a  pano- 
rama of  Pilgrim's  Progress  came  to  Middletown ;  and  while  it  was 
there,  a  picture  representing  the  scenes  of  the  allegory  was  hung  up 
in  the  Post-Office  and  excited  my  intense  interest  and  admiration, 
as  Bunyan  was  one  of  my  favorite  authors.  I  used  to  stand  before 

50 


Early  Education 

as  showing  the  inherent  tendency  of  his  mind  to 
grasp  serious  subjects,  and  also  to  render  some 
account  of  its  activity,  while  dealing  with  them. 

He  hears  a  lecture  on  metals,  and  also  attends 
the  Commencement  exercises  at  the  Wesleyan 
University  of  which  he  gives  excellent,  thoughtful 
accounts  in  his  simple,  lucid  style.  One  letter  of 
this  period  gives  a  bit  of  verbal  self-criticism  that  is 
worthy  of  note  as  showing  that  in  these  early  years 
he  was  awake  to  subtile  distinctions  in  the  use  of 
words.  He  had  given  his  mother  quite  an  account 
of  some  military  operations  in  the  Crimean  War, 
then  raging,  and  he  closed  with  this  sentence:  "If 
anything  has  been  stated  wrong  it  is  (that  I  have) 
understated  (it)."  He  then  scratches  out  the  words 
in  parenthesis  and  adds:  "I  scratched  out  these 
words  because  the  statement  might  be  taken  in  a 
different  sense  from  what  I  meant." 

The  only  allusion  to  his  reading  during  this  in- 

the  picture  and  study  it  every  day  on  my  way  home  from  Daniel 
Chase's  school.  I  presently  tried  to  reproduce  from  memory  its 
principal  features.  After  making  this  sketch,  I  wished  to  introduce 
the  human  figures,  but  was  not  satisfied  with  my  crude  attempts  to 
draw  a  man.  So  I  decided  to  leave  it  for  my  mother,  on  her  next  visit 
to  Middletown,  to  draw  the  men,  and  marked  provisionally,  with 
numerals,  the  places  where  they  were  to  come.  I  intended  afterward 
to  fill  out  the  minor  details  of  shrubbery,  etc.,  somewhat  as  already 
filled  out  to  the  left  of  Palace  Beautiful.  But  with  the  pause  thus 
necessitated,  the  work  stopped,  and  was  by  and  by  forgotten.  Now, 
after  thirty-six  years,  finding  it  —  folded,  frayed  and  torn  —  among 
some  old  papers,  I  have  had  it  mounted  and  framed  as  a  keepsake 
for  my  son,  Herbert  Huxley  Fiske,  who  is  about  the  same  age  that 
I  was  when  I  made  this  sketch. 

JOHN  FISKE. 
Cambridge,  June  6,  1889. 

51 


John  Fiske 

terregnum  year  is  a  remark  in  a  letter  of  August  30, 
1854,  that  at  last  he  has  finished  Gibbon's  "  History 
of  Rome." 

The  question  had  now  arisen  as  to  the  direction 
of  Edmund's  future  education  —  for  college  or  for 
practical  life.  His  decided  predilections  for  knowl- 
edge, his  remarkable  powers  of  acquisition  and 
memory,  his  self-imposed  studious  habits,  and  his 
good  physical  health,  all  united  with  strong,  up- 
right traits  of  character,  seemed  to  demand  a  col- 
lege education  as  their  fitting  complement.  In  the 
year  1854  Mrs.  Green  received  a  proposal  of  mar- 
riage from  Edwin  Wallace  Stoughton,  of  New  York 
City.  Mr.  Stoughton  had  been  a  warm  personal 
friend  of  Mr.  Green's,  and  he  had  known  Mrs. 
Green  for  several  years  and  greatly  admired  her. 
He  was  a  self-educated  man  with  a  wide  practical 
knowledge.  He  had  a  notable  and  impressive  per- 
sonality, which  indicated  great  force  of  character. 
Without  assistance  he  had  won  his  way  to  a  lead- 
ing position  at  the  New  York  Bar.  He  had  a  large 
circle  of  friends  in  other  professions  as  well  as  in  his 
own;  and,  enjoying  an  ample  income,  he  sought  to 
surround  himself  with  the  amenities  of  social  life. 

Mrs.  Green  was  an  exceptionally  attractive 
woman  in  the  full  maturity  of  her  powers.  To  her 
personal  attractions  were  added  many  intellectual 
gifts.  She  had  a  keen  appreciation  of  art  in  its  three- 
fold forms  of  literature,  music,  and  painting ;  at  the 

52 


Early  Education 

same  time  she  took  a  deep  interest  in  the  leading 
social  and  political  questions  of  the  day.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  characteristics  she  possessed  the  charm 
of  a  dignified,  gracious  manner  which  placed  every 
one  at  ease  in  her  presence:  in  short,  she  possessed 
in  a  marked  degree  the  endowments  essential  to 
leadership  in  refined  social  life. 

Mr.  Stoughton's  proposal  appealed  to  Mrs. 
Green.  By  his  abilities  and  his  triumphs  over  diffi- 
culties he  had  won  her  admiration ;  while  his  pro- 
fessional and  social  standing  were  assured. 

But  Mrs.  Green  could  not  forget  her  son  and  her 
duty  to  him.  She  longed  to  have  him  with  her,  and 
in  addition  to  her  devoted  affection  for  him,  she  also 
felt  a  great  responsibility  for  his  educational  bring- 
ing-up  in  view  of  the  very  extraordinary  mental 
powers  he  had  already  put  forth,  coupled  as  they 
were  with  certain  character  elements  —  all  of 
which  gave  promise,  under  proper  training,  of  a 
mind  of  exceptional  power  on  reaching  its  maturity. 
She  took  Edmund,  young  as  he  was,  into  her  confi- 
dence. She  assured  him  that  her  first  duty  was  to 
him,  and  that  any  prospects  that  did  not  include 
his  happiness  as  well  as  her  own  would  not  be  con- 
sidered by  her.  Edmund 's  ready  response  shows  a 
remarkable  maturity  of  mind  for  a  boy  twelve 
years  of  age.  He  told  his  mother  of  his  great  love  for 
her  and  how  it  would  grieve  him  to  have  any  one 
come  between  them  so  that  she  should  lose  any  of 
her  love  for  him.  But  he  did  not  want  her  to  make 

53 


John  Fiske 

any  sacrifice  for  him.  He  was  happy  with  his 
grandmother.  His  wants  were  few;  and  with  a  few 
years  more  of  study  he  could  take  care  of  himself. 
He  did  n't  need  schools  or  teachers;  he  knew  how 
to  study  by  himself;  in  short,  he  showed,  along  with 
his  manly  consideration  for  his  mother,  the  simple 
optimism  of  youth. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1854  Mrs.  Green  accepted 
Mr.  Stoughton's  proposal  of  marriage.  The  ques- 
tion then  arose  as  to  Edmund's  future  home.  His 
mother  wanted  him  with  her,  now  that  she  was  to 
have  a  home  of  her  own.  The  grandparents,  how- 
ever, were  inconsolable  at  the  thought  of  giving  up 
their  charge,  having  tended  him  through  his  in- 
fancy and  early  boyhood,  just  as  he  was  entering 
on  the  most  interesting  period  of  his  development, 
and  they  could  not  relinquish  him  without  much 
sorrow.  It  is  probable  that  the  decision  finally 
reached  was  largely  owing  to  the  wishes  of  Ed- 
mund himself.  Much  as  he  loved  his  mother,  he  did 
not  wish  to  live  in  New  York  City.  He  hated  its 
confinement,  its  narrow  streets,  and  its  noise.  He 
loved  Middletown,  its  quiet,  its  freedom,  its  near- 
ness to  the  country  where  he  could  enjoy  nature 
at  his  will.  He  dearly  loved  his  grandparents,  and 
their  home  was  the  only  real  home  he  had  known. 
He  wished  to  remain  with  them;  and  in  his  boyish 
way  he  pleaded  to  have  his  wishes  respected.  They 
were  respected,  and  it  was  decided  that  he  should 
remain  with  his  grandparents. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  MARRIAGE  OF  MRS.  GREEN  TO  MR.  STOUGHTON 
—  THE  CHANGE  OF  NAME  TO  JOHN  FISK— TWO 
YEARS  AT  BETTS'S  ACADEMY,  STAMFORD  —  JOINS 
ORTHODOX  CHURCH,  MIDDLETOWN 

1855-1857 

MR.  STOUGHTON  and  Mrs.  Green  were  married  at 
the  Fisk  homestead  in  Middletown  in  March,  1855. 
As  it  had  been  decided  that  Edmund  should  remain 
with  his  grandparents,  it  seemed  eminently  proper 
that  his  surname  should  be  changed  so  as  to  express 
his  identification  with  the  Fisk  family  of  which 
he  was  then  the  sole  male  representative.  This  be- 
ing granted,  and  several  of  his  ancestors  having 
worthily  borne  the  Christian  name  of  John,  —  par- 
ticularly his  great-grandfather  who  had  died  in  re- 
cent years  leaving  an  honored  name,  —  it  seemed 
equally  fitting  that  he  should  take  this  Christian 
name  also.  Accordingly  he  was  given  the  name  of 
John  Fisk,  and  the  change  of  name  was  duly  legal- 
ized in  September,  1855,  by  the  Superior  Court  of 
Connecticut. 

Henceforth  in  our  narrative,  therefore,  the  sub- 
ject of  this  memoir  will  appear  in  propria  persona  as 
John  Fisk.1 

1  The  use  of  "e"  in  his  surname  does  not  appear  until  he  reaches 
college  in  1860.  By  an  error  in  printing  the  Harvard  Catalogue  for 

55 


John  Fiske 

Immediately  following  the  marriage  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Stoughton  arrangements  were  made  for  John's 
going  to  the  Betts  Academy,  a  well-established  pre- 
paratory school  at  Stamford,  Connecticut,  in  close 
proximity  to  his  mother,  so  that  she  could  visit  him 
and  he  could  visit  her. 

In  April,  1855, tne  letters  to  his  mother  over  his 
new  name  begin.  The  first  letter,  under  date  of 
April  26,  relates  mainly  to  his  getting  ready  for  go- 
ing to  Stamford.  He  tells  his  mother  that  he  is 
going  to  take  forty  books  with  him,  not  including 
Lardner,  which  he  will  also  take;  that  he  has  put  all 
his  nicely  bound  books  from  downstairs,  and  up  gar- 
ret, in  order  in  his  book-case.  He  also  tells  her  that 
his  grandmother  has  given  him  a  large  black  trunk 
with  his  name  on  it;  and  that  she  has  put  one  hun- 
dred dollars  in  the  bank  for  him  because  he  has  taken 
his  great-grandfather's  name.  He  also  tells  of  his 
closing  up  various  boyish  financial  operations  which 
leaves  him  four  dollars  to  take  with  him,  all  given 
with  the  methodical  accuracy  of  an  official  trustee. 
Then,  too,  he  gives  a  list  of  the  persons  on  whom  he 
is  to  make  parting  calls,  not  omitting  Bridget,  an 
old  family  servant.  The  penmanship  of  this  letter 
is  very  legible,  and  in  appearance  it  reflects  the 
characteristics  of  a  mature  mind,  and  yet  he  asks 
his  mother  to  excuse  his  writing  because  he  is  so 

this  year  his  surname  appeared  as  Fiske.  As  his  ancestors  had  been 
free  to  use  or  drop  the  "  e,"  according  to  their  good  pleasure,  he  took 
a  like  liberty  and  retained  it. 

56 


At  the  Betts  Academy 

"ecstatic."  That  he  takes  pride  in  his  name  is 
shown  by  the  evident  practice  he  has  given  to  the 
form  of  his  new  signature.  It  has  a  resemblance  to 
the  signature  of  his  great-grandfather,  who  was  a 
fine  penman. 

On  May  i,  1855,  Mrs.  Stoughton  took  John  to 
Stamford  and  placed  him  in  charge  of  Mr.  Betts,  the 
principal  of  the  school.  One  week  later  he  writes  his 
mother  the  following  letter:  — 

STAMFORD,  May  7,  1855. 
Dearest  Mother  — 

You  promised  me  that  you  would  come  to  see  me 
within  a  week.  By  the  time  this  reaches  you  it  will 
be  a  week.  I  am  very  homesick  and  if  you  come 
up  it  will  cheer  me  very  much.  Never  mind  your 
housekeeping  affairs.  I  would  have  written  you  be- 
fore but  Mr.  Betts  reads  all  the  letters  the  boys 
send,  and  I  was  afraid  to  write.  But  Mr.  Betts  says 
I  may  write  just  what  I  please.  I  have  got  my 
garden  ready  for  planting.  Walter  and  I  sleep  in 
No.  3.  Each  room  has  two  beds  in  it;  one  single 
the  other  double.  I  am  very  comfortable.  I  have 
enough  to  eat,  warm  bed,  and  Mr.  Betts  is  very 
kind,  but  still  I  have  an  irrepressible  longing  to  see 
home.  To  see  Grandma  Fisk  take  naps  in  her  rock- 
ing chair  in  the  corner;  to  sit  by  the  side  of  the 
stove  in  the  dining-room  writing;  to  sit  with  Julia 
Nichols  and  talk  about  the  war;1  and  to  see 
Grandma  Lewis,  Mr.  Lewis,  and  Mary  and  Allen 
Griswold. 

I  am  going  to  write  to  Grandma  Lewis  as  soon  as 

1  The  Crimean  War. 

57 


John  Fiske 

I  have  finished  this.   I  want  to  write  a  long  letter 
but  cannot  find  any  more  to  say. 

From  your  very  affectionate  son, 

JOHN  FISK. 

P.S.  Be  sure  to  come  Wednesday  if  you  don't 
stay  more  than  an  hour.  Oh,  how  I  shall  look  for 
you  Tuesday  8th.  I  am  getting  along  very  well 
with  the  boys.  I  shall  plant  musk  and  watermelons 
only.  It  rains  very  hard. 

The  letter  to  his  grandmother  is  interesting  in 
that  it  shows  his  dutiful  consideration  for  all  mem- 
bers of  the  family;  and  then  the  postscript!  observe 
the  fine  feeling  in  it. 

STAMFORD,  May  7,  1855. 
Dearest  Grandma  — 

You  must  come  down  before  the  first  of  June.  I 
cannot  say  but  a  few  words.  I  am  very  homesick 
although  surrounded  with  every  comfort  that  heart 
can  wish.  If  you  do  not  write  me  a  letter  I  shall  not 
write  you  one.  It  seems  as  if  I  had  been  here  six 
months  instead  of  six  days.  Walter  and  I  sleep  to- 
gether. I  like  it  better  than  sleeping  alone.  Give 
my  best  love  to  Grandma  Fisk,  Mr.  Lewis,  Allen 
Griswold,  Mary,  Miss  Julia  and  all. 

From  your  affectionate  grandson, 

JOHN  FISK. 

The  next  morning  he  added  the  following  post- 
script :  — 

"I  am  getting  along  very  well  with  the  boys. 
They  are  very  polite  and  use  no  bad  language.  I  did 
not  mean  to  hurt  your  feelings  by  saying  that  I 
should  not  write  until  you  wrote  me." 

58 


At  the  Betts  Academy 

Looking  at  the  originals  of  these  letters,  and  ob- 
serving the  legible  handwriting,  their  freedom  from 
blots,  or  erasures,  or  misspelled  words,  as  well  as 
the  generally  correct  punctuation,  one  can  hardly 
realize  that  they  were  the  easy  product  of  a  boy 
just  turned  thirteen  years  of  age. 

The  Betts  Academy  was  a  well-conducted  school 
of  the  period.  Order  and  method  prevailed  under 
the  influence  of  a  genial  religious  feeling.  John  read- 
ily made  himself  amenable  to  the  school  discipline, 
and  the  following  extracts  from  a  letter  to  his 
grandmother,  apropos  of  her  visiting  him,  written 
after  being  in  the  school  a  fortnight,  are  of  interest 
as  showing  his  studies  and  his  purpose  to  trans- 
cend the  school  requirements  in  his  private  study 
and  reading.  The  pride  he  takes  in  his  home  li- 
brary is  also  shown,  as  well  as  the  distinct  and 
orderly  way  in  which  he  has  the  several  works  in 
mind :  — 

"I  get  up  at  5^  o'clock  every  morning,  am 
dressed  and  ready  for  prayers  in  15  minutes.  At 
6|  o'clock  we  have  breakfast.  From  8  till  10  I  study 
Greek.  Then  there  is  half  an  hour  recess.  From 
loj  till  12  I  study  mathematics.  From  2  till  4 
Latin.  At  6  o'clock  we  have  supper.  From  *]\  till 
8J  I  study  Latin  Prose.  From  8J  to  9  I  read.  The 
playhours  are  from  7  to  8  A.M.,  from  I  to  2  and  from 
4  to  6  P.M.  Every  Wednesday  morning  we  draw. 
Every  Saturday  morning  we  speak  or  write  com- 
positions. Wednesday  and  Saturday  afternoons  we 
go  of  an  excursion.  .  .  .  We  have  a  library  in  the 

59 


John  Fiske 

school-room  with  books  for  the  use  of  the  scholars. 
It  is  not  one-third  as  large  as  mine  though. 

"If  you  look  in  my  book-case  in  the  china  closet, 
you  will  find  '  Kuhner's  Greek  Grammar '  bound  in 
black  cloth  with  a  morrocco  back;  '  Evenings  with 
the  Old  Story  Tellers,'  bound  in  blue  muslin; 
'Johnston's  Natural  Philosophy/  bound  in  yellow 
leather,  and  '  Second  Book  Practical  Anatomy  and 
Physiology,'  bound  in  green  muslin,  with  red  mor- 
rocco back.  Please  bring  them.  .  .  . 

11 1  have  ten  hills  of  melons  —  five  of  each  kind. 
Probably  these  will  yield  20  or  30  melons." 

The  real  boy  nature  comes  out  at  the  close  of  this 
matter-of-fact  letter  where  he  says,  "You  want  to 
know  what  you  shall  bring  me;  bring  me  'suthin 
good/" 

From  the  composition  and  penmanship  of  these 
letters  it  might  be  thought  that  their  excellence  is 
owing  somewhat  to  the  criticism  of  the  principal 
of  the  school.  It  can  be  said,  however,  that  in  these 
particulars  the  letters  are  in  no  way  superior  to 
what  had  preceded  them. 

Subsequent  letters  show  an  increasing  interest  in 
his  studies  as  well  as  in  all  the  personnel  of  the 
school.  His  language  teacher  thinks  him  deficient 
in  Latin  and  Greek,  although  he  is  the  youngest  boy 
in  his  class,  and  has  already  read  the  whole  of  Virgil, 
Horace,  Tacitus,  Sallust,  Suetonius,  several  books 
of  Livy,  a  dozen  orations  of  Cicero,  and  some  of 
his  philosophical  writings,  with  more  or  less  of 
Ovid,  Catullus,  and  Juvenal. 

60 


At  the  Betts  Academy 

Mr.  Betts,  observing  John's  predilection  for 
study  over  everything  else,  early  forbade  his  study- 
ing during  play  hours.  John's  comment  is,  "Now 
having  once  got  out  of  doors  I  hate  staying  in  school 
as  bad  as  the  other  boys."  His  accounts  of  the  va- 
rious amusements,  of  the  Fourth  of  July  celebration, 
and  of  the  school  excursions  are  models  of  simple, 
lucid  narration.  He  early  writes  a  composition  on 
the  sun  and  also  one  on  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  He  reads 
Irving's  "Knickerbocker's  New  York."  His  marks 
are  very  uniform,  and  remarkably  high.  One  in- 
cident connected  with  his  marks  is  worth  giving 
in  his  own  words  as  it  shows  how  well  balanced  his 
mind  was  at  this  early  age :  — 

"  I  am  going  to  relate  to  you  an  incident  which 
shows  the  bad  results  of  idleness.  Tuesday  after- 
noon I  talked  to  Charley  Sterling  in  school  thinking 
I  would  have  plenty  of  time  for  my  lesson.  All  of  a 
sudden  the  class  in  Sallust  was  called.  I  knew  noth- 
ing about  the  lesson  and  was  simply  obliged  to  look 
on.  On  Wednesday  morning,  Mr.  Betts,  when  the 
lesson  was  called,  he  read  off,  *  John  7f.'" 

John's  first  term  at  the  Betts  Academy  closed 
the  last  of  September,  1855,  and  he  returned  to 
Middletown  to  spend  the  vacation  with  his  grand- 
parents. It  seems  that  the  school  vacations  then 
were  in  the  months  of  April  and  October.  Two  in- 
cidents in  this  vacation  are  of  interest  as  showing  a 
growing  appreciation  of  his  personal  appearance 
and  also  that  the  idea  of  going  to  college  is  firmly 

61 


John  Fiske 

fixed  in  his  mind.  For  the  first  time  in  his,  life  he  is 
to  have  a  tailor-made  suit,  of  which  he  gives  this 
brief  but  lucid  description:  — 

"  My  coat  is  to  be  of  black  broad-cloth  to  come  an 
inch  below  my  knees.  My  pants  and  vest  were  done 
Saturday  night.  The  pants  are  small  black  and 
brown  plaid.  Grandma  thinks  they  are  the  prettiest 
I  ever  had.  The  vest  is  dark  brown  with  narrow 
satin  stripes  cutting  it  into  squares. " 

His  grandmother  has  given  him  a  room  for  his 
study  into  which  he  has  gathered  his  books  and  his 
various  belongings,  and  the  idea  of  going  to  college 
distinctly  appears  in  his  description  of  this  room 
and  its  contents :  — 

"  I  have  got  the  north  bed-room  for  my  study.  I 
shall  have  it  when  I  go  to  college.  Before  the  east 
window  is  the  large  black  rocking-chair;  in  the 
Northeast  corner  is  the  high  table  which  stood  in 
the  upper  front  hall,  and  on  it  is  the  little  book-case 
with  1 1 6  books.  On  the  north  side  is  the  black  sofa. 
At  the  west  end  of  the  sofa  is  a  chair.  Two  chairs 
on  the  west  side.  In  the  middle  of  the  room  is  the 
table  which  stood  in  the  back  parlor  before  the 
looking  glass.  It  has  got  a  red  table-cloth  on  it; 
and  my  writing-desk,  and  blank  books,  and  box  of 
instruments  and  father's  'reliquae  poetica'  are  ar- 
ranged on  it  so  as  to  look  as  business-like  and  as 
much  like  Mr.  Stoughton's  table  as  possible." 

This  description  was  accompanied  by  a  very  com- 
plete diagram  showing  the  shape  of  the  room 
and  the  precise  location  of  every  article  referred  to. 

62 


At  the  Betts  Academy 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  uncon- 
scious logical  arrangement  of  the  details  in  this 
description,  but  what  we  should  particularly  note 
is  the  keen  sense  of  order  here  manifested.  This  is  a 
character  trait  which  we  shall  see  manifested  in 
later  years,  in  the  orderly  arrangement  of  his  wide 
and  varied  knowledge.  This  room  became  his  great 
pride,  and  his  retiring  place  during  a  very  impor- 
tant period  in  his  intellectual  development. 

John's  second  term  at  the  Betts  Academy  — 
November  I,  1855  to  April  I,  1856  —  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  marked  by  any  incidents  of 
special  significance.  The  latter  part  of  November 
he  thinks  of  writing  to  his  Grandfather  Green,  but 
being  perplexed  as  to  how  he  should  sign  the  letter, 
he  does  not  write.  His  studies  for  the  term  appear 
to  have  been  mainly  given  to  Latin,  Greek,  and  ge- 
ometry, with  an  intimation  that  he  might  have  had 
some  textbook  chemistry.  Being  near  New  York 
City  his  mother  visited  him  often;  hence  the  letters 
were  not  so  frequent,  nor  were  they  as  full  of  detail 
as  when  he  was  writing  from  Middletown.  He 
mentions  having  written  two  compositions,  one 
of  sixteen  pages  on  the  Crimean  War,  and  one  of 
nine  pages  about  the  ancient  Romans  —  a  subject 
he  confesses  he  "had  not  nearly  exhausted. "  His 
marks  during  this  term  were  exceptionally  high. 
One  week  he  was  perfect  in  everything  —  the  high- 
est record  ever  attained  in  the  school. 

At  the  close  of  the  term  in  March,  1856,  the  ques- 

63 


John  Fiske 

tion  arose  as  to  his  preparing  to  enter  Yale  in  the 
following  September.  At  this  time  there  was  no 
thought  of  his  entering  any  other  college  than  Yale. 
That  he  possibly  could  have  entered  as  freshman 
was  admitted,  but  as  he  was  only  fourteen  years  of 
age  his  mother  decided  against  his  making  the  at- 
tempt and  so  he  returned  to  the  Betts  Academy 
in  May,  but  with  the  purpose  in  his  mind  of  enter- 
ing Yale  as  sophomore  the  next  year. 

The  following  letter  written  to  his  mother  a  little 
later  gives  a  glimpse  at  his  studies,  and  also  shows 
that  he  was  going  about  his  college  preparation  in 
a  very  definite,  self-reliant  way:  — 

STAMFORD,  June  25,  1856. 
Dear  Mother  — 

In  reply  to  your  questions  I  can  say  that  in  my 
studies  I  am  progressing  about  as  well  as  usual.  I 
am  commencing  the  2nd  book  of  Virgil  and  the  3rd 
of  Trigonometry  and  have  entered  upon  a  new 
Greek  author,  ''The  Death  of  Socrates,"  by  Plato. 
I  have  written  no  poems  this  summer.  Mr.  Osborn 
says  he  thinks  I  can  enter  Yale  next  summer  in  the 
sophomore  class,  and  as  you  had  rather  have  me  do 
that  than  enter  freshman  this  year,  I  think  I  will 
do  it.  After  the  time  of  Henry  Eno  leaving  here  — 
which  will  be  the  last  of  next  month,  I  shall  com- 
mence the  freshman  studies,  —  Livy,  Xenophon, 
Latin  Prose  Composition. 

The  letters  to  his  mother  and  grandmother  dur- 
ing this  term  show,  in  addition  to  a  fine  feeling  of  du- 
tiful consideration,  a  growing  breadth  and  serious- 

64 


Religious  Stirrings 

ness  of  thought,  while  his  simple,  lucid  style  in  his 
accounts  of  the  various  incidents  of  the  school  life 
continues  as  a  very  noticeable  feature.  The  political 
contest  that  was  then  going  on  is  reflected  in  the 
letters.  This  was  the  first  Republican  Presidential 
campaign  under  Fremont,  with  Buchanan  and 
Fillmore  as  opposing  candidates.  The  sentiment  of 
the  school  was  wholly  in  favor  of  Fremont,  and  we 
have  this  bit  of  political  vaticination,  which  re- 
flects somewhat  the  nature  of  the  contest  that  was 
being  waged:  "  If  Fillmore  or  Buchanan  should  be 
elected  we  shall  be  ruled  by  Paddies,  or  Dutchmen, 
for  the  next  four  years." 

And  now  we  find  John's  mind  beginning  to  be 
deeply  exercised  on  the  subject  of  religion.  He  had 
accepted  the  faith  of  his  mother  and  his  grand- 
parents as  a  matter  of  course,  and  regarded  the  cus- 
tomary religious  observances  as  quite  in  the  natural 
order  of  things  —  matters  that  were  settled  and 
were  to  be  accepted  without  question.  Then,  too, 
the  Betts  school,  while  not  sectarian,  was  strictly 
evangelical  in  character,  and  attendance  at  prayers 
and  church  services  was  obligatory.  Just  what  par- 
ticular experiences  roused  John's  religious  feelings 
does  not  appear.  It  is  a  fair  supposition  that  to 
his  upright,  well-balanced  mind,  religion  came  as 
wholly  in  the  natural  order  of  things;  and  that  as  his 
ideals  of  life  enlarged  he  seemed  to  see  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith  the  complement  to  all  positive  knowledge 
—  what  was  unknown  to  man  was  known  to  God, 

65 


John  Fiske 

so  that  religion,  the  manifestation  of  man's  faith  in 
God,  "  who  doeth  all  things  well,"  was  the  funda- 
mental part  of  all  human  knowledge. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  direct,  impelling 
causes  of  his  religious  feelings,  certain  it  is  that  dur- 
ing this  term  they  were  so  thoroughly  roused  that 
he  went  beyond  the  school  requirements  in  his  at- 
tendance upon  the  religious  exercises:  indeed,  he 
went  so  far  as  to  request  his  mother  not  to  visit  him 
on  Wednesday  or  Friday  evenings,  as  he  had  meet- 
ings on  those  evenings.  A  little  later  he  formally 
joined  the  North  Congregational  Church  in  Mid- 
dletown. 

During  this  term  he  appears  to  have  had  diffi- 
culty with  one  of  his  eyes.  He  writes,  August  18, 
1856:  "  I  have  been  putting  my  drawing  into  effect. 
I  went  with  Mr.  Betts  about  a  month  ago  to  survey 
a  lot  for  a  new  church.  I  drew  several  large  plans 
and  maps  for  the  deacons  of  the  church.  My  eyes 
have  troubled  me  very  much  in  consequence/' 
His  school  record  during  this  term  is,  for  deport- 
ment, perfect;  while  for  his  lessons,  the  average  is 
9A  perfect. 

John's  devotion  to  his  studies  and  his  ambition 
for  an  early  entrance  at  college  combined  with  his 
religious  earnestness  gave  his  mother  grave  concern 
over  preparing  for  college  at  his  early  age.  With  his 
great  desire  for  knowledge  and  his  faithfulness  to 
his  studies,  it  was  apparent  that  his  physical  con- 
stitution could  not  stand  the  strain  he  was  willing  to 

66 


Joins  Orthodox  Church 

put  himself  under,  and  that  his  ambition  must  be 
checked,  at  least  for  a  period.  Accordingly,  toward 
the  close  of  the  term  his  teachers  seriously  advised 
him  to  give  up  his  idea  of  entering  Yale  the  next 
year  as  sophomore,  to  take  things  easier,  to  come 
back  and  take  another  term  at  the  school  and  not 
try  to  enter  above  freshman.  John  accepted  this 
advice  —  in  part  —  and  returned  to  the  school  in 
November  for  the  winter  term. 

During  these  last  two  terms  his  visits  to  his 
mother  and  her  visits  to  him  were  frequent,  so  that 
we  get  in  his  letters  but  few  particulars  in  regard  to 
his  studies.  Apparently  they  were  confined  to  Latin, 
Greek,  and  English  grammar,  with  readings  and 
translations  of  the  classics,  arithmetic,  algebra,  and 
geometry.  His  reading  is  evidently  quite  excur- 
sive, for  he  asks  his  mother  to  bring  him  a  copy 
of  "Hudibras,"  which  he  wants  very  much;  and  he 
writes  an  essay  on  the  " Habitability  of  Planets" 
and  one  on  the  "Augustan  Era,"  in  the  former  of 
which  he  made  the  point,  familiar  now,  but  new 
then,  that  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  owing  to  their  great 
size  and  slow  refrigeration,  are  in  a  much  earlier 
phase  of  development  than  Venus  and  the  Earth. 
Then,  too,  he  appears  to  have  been  dwelling  upon 
the  thought  that  the  tracing-out  of  God's  Provi- 
dence in  history  would  be  a  suitable  work  for  his 
mature  years. 

On  January  2,  1857,  John  writes  his  mother  a 
letter  of  four  pages,  portions  of  which  are  of  special 

67 


John  Fiske 

interest  as  reflecting  the  profoundly  serious  char- 
acter of  his  religious  feeling,  as  well  as  marking  a 
stage  in  his  religious  development.  The  letter  opens 
with  an  excuse  for  not  writing  for  some  days  be- 
cause of  illness.  To  use  his  own  words:  "I,  John 
Fisk,  have  had  the  mumps!  For  a  week  my  en- 
larged face  rested  upon  a  double  chin."  And  here  is 
a  bit  of  adolescent  moralizing,  which  shows  how 
seriously  his  religious  experience  was  affecting  the 
whole  order  of  his  thought:  — 

"The  old  year  has  fled:  those  many  happy  hours 
which  it  has  witnessed  —  that  happy  visit 1  are  fled 
likewise.  It  has  gone,  all  gone.  Those  lost  opportu- 
nities can  never  be  recovered :  those  hours  of  pleas- 
ure will  never  return:  those  scenes  have  fled  and 
live  but  in  the  past.  Oh,  may  this  new  year  be  the 
witness  of  yet  happier  scenes  to  you,  as  well  as  to 
myself  dear  mother;  and  to  all  dear  to  us.  May  we 
live  so  that  in  future  years  we  may  look  back  upon 
it  as  one  spent  in  the  service  of  the  meek  and  lowly 
Jesus." 

And  this  is  his  felicitation  of  the  advent  of  the 
New  Year:  — 

"Hail  New  Year!  It  welcomes  me  with  a  glad 
smile  as  it  beholds  me  reading  Cicero,  Xenophon, 
and^Elian;  and  peradventure,  dipping  into  Algebra, 
or  poring  over  the  rules  of  Latin  composition. 
Farewell,  O  Virgil!  thou  hast  been  a  source  of  pleas- 
ure as  well  as  profit.  Many  a  '9'  hast  thou  given 

1  Evidently  a  reference  to  a  visit  from  his  mother,  when  he  con- 
fided to  her  his  deep  religious  feeling,  and  received  her  sympathy. 

68 


Religious  Development 

me ;  never  has  the  bitter  '  7 '  risen  from  thy  pages  to 
meet  my  unwelcoming  eyes." 

The  letter  closes  in  the  following  serious  strain:  — 

"  Mother,  I  wish  you  many  *  Happy  New  Years r ; 
and  that  we  may  meet  to  spend  a  happy  eternity  in 
Heaven  is  the  prayer  of  your  son, 

"JOHN   FlSK." 

The  letters  during  the  remainder  of  the  term 
have  but  little  general  interest,  save  as  showing  his 
faithfulness  to  his  studies  and  as  reflecting  some- 
what the  seething  adolescent  impulses  that  were 
coursing  through  his  brain.  His  school  record  for 
the  whole  term  was  very  high  —  the  highest  ever 
attained  in  the  school — deportment,  perfect:  les- 
sons, 353.85  out  of  a  possible  380  as  perfect. 

At  the  close  of  the  term  there  was  the  usual  school 
exhibition,  with  speaking  and  prizes  for  both  com- 
position and  speaking.  John  won  the  first  prize 
for  an  oration  on  "Silent  Influences"  —  the  prize, 
awarded  by  three  clergymen  of  Stamford,  being 
for  both  the  composition  and  the  delivery.  In  a  long 
letter  to  his  mother  John  gives  a  graphic  account  of 
the  exhibition  and  the  awarding  of  the  prizes.  This 
letter  is  marked  not  only  with  all  the  felicities  of 
style  we  have  had  occasion  to  notice  in  previous 
letters;  it  also  shows  an  innate  trait  of  character 
remarkable  in  a  boy  of  his  years  —  a  clear  sense  of 
justice  and  a  desire  to  do  justice  to  others,  and 
especially  when  unfortunate  in  presenting  their 

69 


John  Fiske 

claims.  Although  John  was  the  hero  of  the  occasion, 
—  the  youngest  in  the  graduating  class,  having  the 
highest  school  record  ever  attained  in  the  school, 
and  the  winner  of  the  first  prize,  — yet  in  his  account 
of  the  affair  he  says  as  little  of  himself  as  possible, 
while  he  warmly  praises  his  competitors  and  shows 
his  greatest  interest  in  the  boy  who  failed  through 
embarrassment:  in  short,  he  gives  a  clear  idea  of  the 
excellence  of  his  own  performance  by  the  generous 
praise  he  gives  his  competitors. 

John  received  for  his  prize  a  copy  of  Cowper's 
"  Works "  in  one  octavo  volume  bound  in  morocco; 
he  also  received  from  his  teacher,  Mr.  Osborn,  "  a 
Greek  Testament,  a  cunning  little  thing  with  maps/' 
These  volumes  he  always  prized  as  mementoes  of 
his  happy  days  at  Stamford;  and  they  remain  to- 
day, in  his  library  at  Cambridge,  among  the  cher- 
ished souvenirs  of  his  educational  period. 
i  And  thus,  having  just  passed  his  fifteenth  birth- 
day, John's  schooling  at  Stamford  came  to  an  end ; 
he  left  the  Betts  Academy  with  the  affectionate  re- 
gard of  his  classmates,  his  teachers,  and  Mr.  Betts; 
and  he  returned  to  Middletown,  wearing,  as  he  tells 
us,  "a  tall  silk  hat  as  an  emblem  of  manhood." 


CHAPTER  V 

RETURNS  TO  MIDDLETOWN  —  PREPARES  FOR  EN- 
TRANCE AT  YALE  —  GENERAL  READING — HUM- 
BOLDT'S  "COSMOS"  —  DAWNING  RATIONALISM — 
MUSICAL  DIVERSIONS  —  PASSES  FRESHMAN  EXAMI- 
NATIONS FOR  YALE  —  DECIDES  TO  GO  TO  HARVARD 

1857-1858 

JOHN'S  return  to  Middletown  in  April,  1857,  was 
only  to  take  up  another  phase  of  his  educational 
training.  His  purpose  was  to  enter  Yale  as  sopho- 
more the  following  September.  In  this  purpose  he 
had  the  approval  of  his  mother,  and  he  sought  a 
tutor  to  review  him  in  the  freshman  studies.  In  the 
course  of  his  inquiries  he  heard  of  an  unattached 
clergyman,  the  Reverend  Henry  M.  Colton,  who 
had  recently  opened  a  preparatory  school  for  boys 
in  Middletown,  and  who  had  an  excellent  reputa- 
tion at  Yale  for  scholarship,  and  also  for  his  suc- 
cess in  preparing  students  for  the  entrance  examina- 
tions. John  called  upon  Mr.  Colton  with  reference 
to  getting  assistance  in  continuing  his  preparatory 
studies  during  the  summer,  and  he  gave  his  mother 
an  exceedingly  graphic  account  of  the  interview. 
In  view  of  the  subsequent  relations  between  John 
and  Mr.  Colton,  and  also  as  an  illustration  of  John's 
power  of  personal  characterization  at  this  early  age, 
the  letter  is  of  particular  interest :  — 


John  Fiske 

MIDDLETOWN,  May  26th,  1857. 

My  dear  Mother,  — 

I  went  to  Mr.  Colton's  on  Saturday,  and  the  sub- 
stance of  the  proceedings  is  as  follows  after  the  us- 
ual preliminaries  —  statement  of  case,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

He  has  seven  boys,  all  sons  of  nabobs.  His  terms 
are  $500.  per  annum  for  his  boarders!!!  and  about 
$40.  for  me  until  August  1st.  Whew!!!  He  wished 
to  know  what  course  I  intended  to  pursue  with 
him  —  Latin,  Greek,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  I  said  I  wished 
to  review  everything.  He  made  some  question 
about  what  I  had  studied,  etc.,  —  looked  very 
profound! 

Just  then  Dr.  Taylor  came  in  to  see  him  about 
some  hymns  for  the  choir  on  Sunday.  Glad  to  see 
me  —  son  of  Mrs.  E.  W.  Stoughton,  residing  in 
New  York  —  grandson  of  Mrs.  E.  Lewis  in  Mid- 
dletown  —  residing  with,  and  under  care  of  his 
grandmother,  etc.,  etc.  To  which  Mr.  Col  ton  re- 
plied— "Oh!" 
,  Dr.  T.  "He  is  quite  young  to  go  to  college?" 

Mr.  C.  "Oh!  Ah!  Ugh!  not  more  than  18  or  19  I 
should  say." 

Dr.  T.  "He  is  only  seventeen." 

J.  F.  "I  am  only  fifteen." 

Mr.  C.  "Ha,  Ha,  Ha!!!" 

Exit  Dr.  Taylor. 

Mr.  C.  "Do  you  know  German?" 

/.  F.  "No,  sir! " 

Mr.  C.  "Do  you  know  French? " 

J.  F.  "No!" 

Mr.  C.  "Ha,  Ha,  Ha,  Ha,  Ha,  Ha!" 

J.  F.  "Why?" 

Mr.  C.  "Why!!!  Ha,  Ha,  Ha,  Ha!" 

72 


Returns  to  Middletown 

J.  F.  "Why  should  I  understand  French  and 
German?  they  are  not  required. "  (You  see  I  was 
beginning  to  get  mad  at  his  rudeness.) 

Mr.  C.  (not  heeding  me).  "Oh!  you  want  to  say 
I  graduated  when  I  was  19.  You  want  to  seem 
smart  and  precocious!  You  want  to  swell  up  and 
be  big  — Ha,  Ha,  Ha,  Ha!!  etc.,  etc." 

Well,  after  he  had  got  through  with  his  everlast- 
ing guffaws,he  said  I  had  no  business  to  go  to  college 
(Yale  especially)  at  15;  'twould  kill  me,  wear  me 
out,  etc.,  tremendous  hard  time  of  it  —  and  all  that 
lingo.  But  you  see  he  wanted  to  get  me  for  a  whole 
year  or  two.  (Ah!  thought  I,  you  don't  come  that.) 
He  is  going  to  have  a  row-boat.  His  marks  are 
from  o  to  300  —  pretty  minute  system  that.  He  is 
very  liberal,  etc.,  has  had  his  7  "nabobs  junior"  six 
months  on  twelve  Greek  pages!!  Wants  to  do  the 
same  with  me!  Marks  boys  for  sitting  badly,  for 
hesitating,  for  saying  a  word  twice  over;  and  spends 
more  time  I  should  think  with  his  300  marks  than 
with  his  pedagogical  duties. 

He  is  not  possessed  of  an  extraordinary  degree  of 
politeness,  though  a  very  fine  scholar;  thinks  he  is 
just  the  smartest  man  in  creation  —  self-made  man, 
educated  himself,  etc.  Talks  all  the  time  about  him- 
self, gabbles  continually.  Little  weazen-faced  man 
of  about  35,  hard  brow,  cold  eyes,  spectacles,  high 
cheek-bones,  light  hair,  shaggy  eye-brows,  no  beard, 
small  nose  of  no  particular  species;  on  the  whole 
rather  decidedly  plain.  Very  pleasant  face  though 
odd  way  of  speaking;  very  'set'  and  can't  be  si- 
lenced :  chilling  repulsive  feeling  came  over  me  when 
I  saw  him:  and  before  I  had  talked  with  him  five 
minutes  I  hated  him  like  sixty.  Very  strange,  be- 

73 


John  Fiske 

cause  he  was  pleasant  as  could  be.  He  talked,  tak- 
ing it  for  granted  that  I  did  n't  know  anything,  and 
seemed  to  have  imbibed  the  idea  that  money  was 
not  an  indigenous  crop  where  I  lived.  When  he 
thought  I  was  18  years  old  he  was  as  civil  as  could 
be;  but  when  he  found  I  was  only  15  he  talked  quite 
differently. 

We  have  come  to  no  agreement  as  yet;  and  I 
most  ardently  hope  that  I  shall  never  have  him  for 
my  boss.  I  would  rather  have  Mr.  Chase  or  "Mr. 
Squeers"  2000  times.  His  price  is  stupendous  — 
perfectly  alarming.  $40.  for  three  months  school- 
ing! Mr.  Chase  would  be  only  $8.  That  was  his 
price  when  I  used  to  go  to  him.  It  can't  be  much 
more  now. 

At  any  rate  I  don't  want  to  go  to  him  if  you  had 
just  as  lief  have  me  recite  to  Mr.  Chase.  I  don't 
like  that  particularly;  but  out  of  two  evils  I  would 
choose  the  least. 

I  guess  you  will  get  used  to  the  beaver  by  mid- 
summer. Good-bye. 

JOHN. 

But  John's  dislike  of  Mr.  Colton  was  overborne 
in  the  mind  of  his  grandmother  by  Mr.  Colton's 
reputation  for  scholarship  and  for  his  influence  at 
Yale.  Speaking  of  Mr.  Colton's  influence  at  Yale 
John  writes:  "Grandmother  (Mrs.  Nickleby  like) 
was  so  elated  at  that,  that  she  persuaded  me  to  go 
to  him  —  said  she  was  willing  to  pay.  So  we  went 
in  the  afternoon  and  fixed  it  up." 

His  first  day's  experience  with  Mr.  Colton  was 
indeed  discouraging.  He  writes  his  mother:  — 

74 


Prepares  for  Yale 

"  Yesterday  I  went  and  with  all  his  fine  (?)  teach- 
ing he  has  got  a  set  of  dunces.  Oh,  I  thought,  if  he 
could  only  hear  us  at  Mr.  Betts!  Why,  such  recita- 
tions as  yesterday's,  would  be  considered  at  Stam- 
ford as  reflecting  shame  on  both  school  and  teacher. 
Mr.  Col  ton  wants  to  see  you  and  convince  you  of 
the  feasibility  of  my  staying  out.  Staying  out  of  Col- 
lege and  going  to  Mr.  Col  ton's!!!!  I  have  no  words 
to  express  my  contempt  and  indignation  at  the 
proposal  unless  I  repeat  the  significant  particle. 
Bah!!!" 

Three  days'  experience  in  the  school,  however, 
brought  a  complete  change  in  John's  mind  in  regard 
both  to  Mr.  Colton's  methods  of  teaching  and  his 
own  early  entrance  at  college.  The  reasons  for  his 
change  of  mind  are  frankly  given;  and  we  have  here 
a  clear  instance  of  his  open-mindedness  and  his 
power  of  self-control  which  enabled  him  to  face  a 
very  unpleasant  situation  with  a  course  of  action 
based  upon  sound  judgment,  and  quite  in  opposi- 
tion to  what  he  had,  upon  imperfect  knowledge,  set 
his  mind.  The  following  extracts  are  from  a  letter 
dated  May  30,  1857,  to  his  mother:  — 

"I  like  Mr.  Colton's  method  more  and  more. 
He  is  without  doubt  a  wise,  kind,  though  very  ec- 
centric, man.  But  just  think  how  different  from 
what  I  am  used  to.  I  study  three  hours  and  a  half 
upon  one  third  of  a  page  in  Greek!  What  do  you 
think?  I  have  to  give  a  flowing  translation  which  is 
not  always  easy.  I  have  to  trace  every  word  through 
its  different  phases  and  dialectic  changes.  I  have 

75 


John  Fiske 

to  find  and  give  the  corresponding  word  in  Latin, 
Hebrew,  Sanskrit,  German  and  sometimes  in 
French ;  so  that  although  I  have  only  been  with  him 
three  days,  I  can  already  see  the  beautiful  and  won- 
derful relations  of  these  parallel  languages." 

We  shall  have  occasion,  in  subsequent  years,  to 
observe  John's  great  interest  in  comparative  phil- 
ology. Here  we  have  to  note  the  beginning  of  that 
interest.  Having  become  a  convert  to  Mr.  Colton's 
method,  John  now  takes  under  favorable  consid- 
eration Mr.  Colton's  suggestion  of  postponing  his 
college  entrance  for  two  years  or  more  and  giving 
the  time  to  a  broader  and  more  thorough  prepara- 
tion than  he  had  hitherto  considered.  Mr.  Colton 
brought  some  strong  arguments  in  support  of  his 
suggestion,  basing  them  on  John's  extreme  youth 
and  his  exceptional  interest  in  his  studies  —  two 
points  which,  united  as  they  were  in  his  case,  would 
inevitably  lead  to  excessive  mental  strain  and  bring 
on  a  mental  break-down  before  he  could  finish  a 
thorough  college  course.  John  repeats  Mr.  Colton's 
arguments,  and  then  adds:  — 

"  Suppose  I  should  go  to  Mr.  Colton  a  year  or 
two  and  get  well  grounded  in  this  thorough  system 
of  education,  and  then  keep  studying  and  teach 
school,  and  go  to  college  when  I  am  21  or  22  years 
old  and  then  take  the  valedictory  and  render  my- 
self immortal!  for  a  Yale  valedictorian  is  immor- 
talized. I  don't  want  to  do  this;  but  I  think  it  is 
best.  I  have  but  one  life  to  live  and  I  cannot  live 
too  well.  I  cannot  learn  too  much,  nor  take  too  high 

76 


His  Studies 

a  niche  in  the  Temple  of  Fame.  Now  I  am  urging 
you  to  let  me  take  a  course  which  is  disagreeable 
to  me;  but  I  do  want  to  stand  high  in  college." 

How  well  the  fine-tempered  boy  comes  out  in  this 
paragraph!  What  a  pity  that  he  had  no  adequate 
preparatory  or  college  ideal  to  turn  to  at  this  in- 
teresting period !  He  seems  to  have  been  left  in  the 
final  determination  to  his  own  choice.  The  prepara- 
tory course  for  an  early  entrance  at  Yale  was  aban- 
doned, and  John  put  himself  under  Mr.  Colton's 
educational  guidance  for  an  indefinite  period  and 
immediately  settled  down  to  his  studies  in  his  usual 
thoroughgoing  way. 

John  gave  an  account  some  years  later  of  this 
change  of  purpose  with  Mr.  Col  ton  with  the  results 
that  flowed  from  it,  and  his  succinct  account  has  a 
fitting  place  here. 

"I  began  reading  with  him  (Col ton)  just  for  a 
few  weeks  until  I  could  go  to  Yale  and  I  got  so 
much  in  love  with  his  methods  of  scholarship,  that 
I  studied  with  him  over  two  years  and  got  steeped 
in^Greek  to  the  very  ends  of  my  toes,  besides  getting 
an  excellent  reading  knowledge  of  German.  I  often 
wonder  that  I  staid  with  him  so  long,  for  his  man- 
ners were  odious.  He  was  cross,  rude,  unreasonable, 
ill-tempered,  furious  in  his  outbursts  of  anger  — 
quite  a  savage  —  and  I  hated  the  sight  of  him :  but 
1  liked  his  teaching." 

We  have  not  the  particulars  of  all  his  studies 
with  Mr.  Colton.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  he 

77 


John  Fiske 

put  himself  into  full  conformity  to  Mr.  Colton's  re- 
quirements, and  that  he  took  up  the  study  of  Ger- 
man, algebra,  and  Euclid,  in  addition  to  Latin  and 
Greek.  He  tells  us  in  his  letters  that  at  this  time  he 
could  read  easy  Greek  like  Plato  or  Herodotus  at 
sight.  His  reading  was  not  in  scraps  as  boys  usually 
read  Greek,  but  he  would  take  up  an  oration  of 
Lysias  and  read  it  through;  and  the  "Iliad"  he 
would  read  continuously. 

The  latter  part  of  July  of  this  year  —  1857  —  he 
went  to  the  Yale  commencement,  taking  in  Stam- 
ford by  the  way,  and  his  account  of  the  trip  has 
all  his  felicity  of  style.  Knowledge  of  his  probable 
early  entrance  at  Yale  had  preceded  him,  and  while 
in  New  Haven  he  visited  two  college  societies  and 
he  was  "bored  like  sixty"  to  join  them.  What  was 
of  greatest  interest  to  him  on  this  trip  was  his  hear- 
ing an  address  by  Wendell  Phillips,  which  he  says 
was  "perfectly  splendid  —  one  of  the  finest  things 
I  ever  heard." 

It  was  while  John  was  settling  down  at  Colton's 
that  he  became  acquainted  with  George  Litch 
Roberts,  a  junior  at  the  Wesleyan  University.  Rob- 
erts was  possessed  of  a  strong,  self-reliant  character, 
and  was  John's  senior  by  five  years;  but  as  both 
were  earnest  students,  and  as  they  had  much  in 
common  in  their  ideals  of  the  knowledge  that  was 
of  most  worth,  as  well  as  in  their  musical  tastes 
and  religious  beliefs,  this  disparity  of  years  was  not 
felt  between  them,  and  their  acquaintance  ripened 

78 


Interest  in  Music 

into  an  intellectual  companionship  which,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  had  a  strong,  stimulating  effect  upon 
John's  intellectual  development  as  he  came  to  ma- 
turity. 

Another  incident  of  this  period  must  be  referred 
to,  as  we  are  to  see  an  influence  radiating  from  it, 
which,  permeating  the  whole  of  John's  subsequent 
life,  gave  to  it  no  small  degree  of  its  richness  and 
fulness.  A  friend  had  left  with  his  grandmother  for 
safe-keeping  a  piano.  John  became  greatly  inter- 
ested in  playing  upon  it,  and  gave  to  this  diversion 
a  goodly  portion  of  his  spare  time.  Having  a  "  good 
ear"  he  worked  by  himself  until  he  could  play  such 
works  as  Mozart's  Twelfth  Mass,  "just  to  see  what 
they  were  like."  He  could  find  no  encouragement  in 
those  days  for  learning  the  piano;  and  when  in 
later  years  we  are  to  see  him  finding  his  greatest 
solace  from  his  intellectual  labor  in  mastering  its 
"wonderful  harmonies,"  we  shall  do  well  to  recall 
this  early  unpremeditated  experience  with  a  friend's 
piano. 

The  awakening  of  John's  interest  in  music  was 
coincident  with  the  rise  of  his  religious  feelings,  and 
having  joined  the  choir  of  the  North  Church  he 
sought  among  other  interests  to  give  his  religious 
emotions  musical  expression.  Accordingly  at  this 
period  he  composed  a  number  of  musical  composi- 
tions, some  of  which  are  of  a  decidedly  religious 
character.  These  compositions  have  been  preserved, 
and  are  of  interest,  not  only  by  reason  of  the  neat- 

79 


John  Fiske 

ness  and  the  technical  accuracy  of  their  execution, 
but  also  by  what  they  show  of  his  musical  profi- 
ciency, gained  without  any  instruction. 

At  the  opening  of  the  year  1858  John  was  ap- 
proaching his  sixteenth  birthday,  and  he  reveals 
himself  as  in  good  health,  enjoying  physical  exer- 
cise, and  with  his  mind,  free  from  any  outside  pres- 
sure, expanding  in  several  directions.  He  is  so  well 
satisfied  with  Mr.  Colton's  methods  that  he  has 
settled  down  to  his  studies  with  great  ardor.  In 
Greek,  Latin,  and  German  he  is  studying  the 
grammatical  construction  and  syntactical  relation 
of  the  three  languages;  and  to  this  end  he  is  work- 
ing simultaneously  with  two  or  more  grammars  of 
each  language  for  the  purpose  of  getting  various 
views  on  essential  points,  and  then  discussing  these 
points  with  Mr.  Colton.  In  mathematics  he  is 
working  with  Euclid  to  the  fourth  book,  and  in 
algebra  with  the  textbooks  of  Loomis  and  Peirce. 
He  is  delighted  to  find  Mr.  Colton  so  thorough;  and 
in  addition  to  his  day  study,  he  assigns  two  eve- 
nings a  week  to  study  purposes. 

As  the  year  progressed,  Spanish  was  added  to  his 
language  course,  and  he  became  greatly  interested 
in  "theming"  —  that  is,  in  tracing  out  the  origin 
and  significance  of  words  in  the  Greek  and  Latin 
languages,  and  their  modifications  and  significa- 
tions in  the  modern  languages.  Nearly  every  letter 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  year  contains  one  or 
more  of  these  themes. 

80 


His  General  Reading 

And  here  is  a  comment  on  the  exercise  of  them- 
ing,  not  unworthy  of  a  mature  philologist,  which  he 
drops  by  the  way:  — 

"  Nothing  like  Theming  to  give  one  a  broad  view 
of  language.  It  gives  one  the  thoughts  which  lie  in 
the  mind,  and  which  call  forth  words  to  embody 
ideas,  and  to  develop  the  words  into  genera  and 
species." 

John's  language  work  leads  to  a  study  of  the  phil- 
ological essays  of  Gibbs  and  of  Key,  and  also  to  a 
careful  reading  of  Davidson's  and  of  Ladewig's 
Virgil.  More  than  this,  these  philological  readings 
reawakened  John's  interest  in  ancient  history,  and 
he  reread  Rollin  down  to  Greece,  and  then  he 
took  up  Grote's  "  History  of  Greece."  That  this 
historical  reading  was  of  a  thoughtful  character  is 
shown  by  an  incidental  remark:  — 

"I  am  reading  the  sixth  volume  of  Grote.  He 
must  be  a  genius,  or  he  never  could  use  such  splen- 
did language  as  he  does  in  describing  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  War.  He  seems  to  approach  the  grandeur  of 
his  model  Thucydides  —  or,  to  use  the  new  orthog- 
raphy, Thoukydides." 

In  mathematics  during  this  year,  John  advanced 
in  algebra  to  Maclaurin's  Theorem  inclusive;  while 
in  geometry  he  seems  to  have  confined  himself  to 
working  out  a  few  theorems,  some  of  which  he  gives, 
particularly  one  developed  from  the  proposition  of 
Pythagoras  which  was  proposed  for  demonstration 

81 


John  Fiske 

by  the  u  Mathematical  Monthly/'  and  which  he 
worked  out  himself,  and  "  without  once  referring  to 
Euclid."  As  a  sort  of  mathematical  diversion  he 
read  Sir  William  Hamilton's  essay  on  "  Mathe- 
matics. " 

Phrenology  was  a  subject  of  wide  popular  interest 
in  those  days,  and  John  became  greatly  interested 
in  the  rough-and-ready  way  of  reading  character 
inculcated  by  it.  He  read  very  thoughtfully  Fowl- 
er's works  on  "Phrenology,"  then  very  popular, 
and  immediately  began  to  apply  the  "Theory  of 
Bumps  "  to  himself,  to  his  mother,  to  his  friend 
Roberts  —  in  fact,  to  all  his  friends  —  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  their  characters.  His  phrenological 
readings  are  to-day  very  amusing,  yet  we  must 
not  forget  that  during  the  first  half  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, phrenology  played  an  important  part  in  the 
development  of  what  is  now  known  as  rational 
psychology. 

John's  miscellaneous  reading  during  this  year  is 
not  only  a  further  illustration  of  his  mental  activity ; 
it  is  also  an  indication  of  the  high  order  of  his  in- 
tellectual tastes,  for  what  a  mind  in  the  process  of 
unfolding  selects  for  its  diversions  reflects  its  in- 
herent character  or  tastes  no  less  than  its  positive 
activities.  In  addition  to  what  has  been  given, 
his  reading  comprised  Dickens's  "Little  Dorrit," 
"TheOld  Curiosity  Shop,"  and  "  Barnaby  Rudge  " ; 
Emerson's  "English  Traits";  Bayne's  essays  on 
Macaulay  and  Tennyson;  Shakespeare's  poems; 

82 


His  General  Reading 

Milton's  "Lycidas";  Comstock's  "  Elements  of 
Geology";  Hugh  Miller's  "The  Testimony  of  the 
Rocks";  Humboldt's  "  The  Cosmos  ";  and  Mackie's 
"Life  of  Leibnitz." 

That  these  works  were  read  with  a  similar 
thoughtfulness  to  that  which  marked  his  study- 
reading,  is  shown  in  the  letters.  In  speaking  of 
"Barnaby  Rudge,"  he  says:  "I  think  it  surpassed 
by  none  of  his  other  works.  I  don't  know  which  of 
Dickens's  works  is  the  best,  but  I  think  they  can 
never  be  surpassed."  Of  Shakespeare  and  Milton 
he  says:  "I  think  Shakespeare  better  than  Milton, 
just  as  Homer  is  to  Sophocles,  or  Virgil  to  Lucre- 
tius." He  was  so  impressed  by  Mackie's  "Life  of 
Leibnitz"  that  he  gave  his  mother  a  complete 
sketch  of  the  life  of  the  great  philosopher,  closely 
written  on  three  letter-sheet  pages,  and  without 
blot  or  erasure. 

The  most  significant  of  his  comments  on  his  read- 
ing are  with  reference  to  Humboldt  and  his  great 
work,  "The  Cosmos."  We  have  here  to  note  par- 
ticularly a  dawning  interest  in  cosmic  phenomena, 
and  that  he  appears  to  have  had  a  dim  apprehen- 
sion of  the  great  discussion  over  "origins"  that 
was  soon  to  follow  —  that  was  already  in  the  air; 
for  we  see  him  reading  Hugh  Miller,  the  orthodox 
champion  of  special  creations,  almost  coincidently 
with  his  reading  of  Humboldt's  profoundly  sug- 
gestive work.  Of  deep  significance,  therefore,  in 
the  life  of  John  Fiske  are  the  following  questions 

83 


John  Fiske 

which  he  puts  to  his  mother  at  this  time,  with  ref- 
erence to  Humboldt  and  to  his  "Cosmos":  — 

"Do  you  not  consider  Humboldt  the  greatest 
man  of  the  igth  century,  and  the  most  erudite  that 
ever  lived?  Does  not  the  'Cosmos*  exhibit  more 
vast  learning  than  any  other  uninspired  book?" 

These  questions  of  John  Fiske,  bearing  date  of 
1858,  are  the  first  dawnings  that  we  find  of  the 
subject  of  Cosmic  Evolution  in  his  mind. 

John's  musical  diversions  are  continued  through 
the  year.  In  view  of  what  we  are  to  see  later  these 
early  musical  experiences  are  worth  noting.  He 
joins  a  musical  association  of  which  Roberts  is  a 
member,  and  he  reads  Marx  on  "  Musical  Composi- 
tion" and  studies  various  oratorios.  He  begins  the 
composition  of  an  opera  which  he  calls  "The  Storm 
Spirit,"  and  gives  an  analysis  of  the  theme,  express- 
ing the  hope  that  during  his  vacation  there  may 
be  some  good  opera  or  oratorio  performing  in  New 
York  City,  that  he  may  attend  with  his  mother.  He 
adds:  "  I  don't  want  to  attend  any  American  opera 
after  studying  the  works  of  Schubert,  Mendelssohn, 
and  their  less  distinguished  Italian  contemporaries." 

In  music,  as  we  shall  see,  in  literature,  architec- 
ture, painting,  and  sculpture,  his  instinctive  taste 
strikes  true  from  the  first  —  he  demands  the  best. 

And  with  all  his  interests,  his  religious  duties 
were  not  neglected.  "Something  of  a  revival "  was 
going  on  in  Middletown  this  year,  and  John  appears 
to  have  taken  an  active  part  in  the  various  forms  of 

84 


Music  and  Religion 

• 

service  at  the  North  Church.  He  and  Roberts  were 
members  of  the  choir,  he  taught  in  the  Sunday 
School,  was  interested  in  the  Bible  Class;  and  dur- 
ing the  revival  interest,  he  specifically  assigned  two 
evenings  a  week  to  the  revival  meetings,  in  the 
conduct  of  which  he  not  only  led  the  singing,  but 
also  took  an  active  part  in  the  speaking.  In  brief,  he 
appears  to  have  accepted  the  Calvinistic  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Christian  faith  without  reservation; 
and  in  all  his  studies  and  in  all  his  acts  he  seems  to 
have  been  actuated  by  a  sincere  desire  to  conform 
his  life  to  the  highest  ideals  of  Christian  conduct. 
At  the  opening  of  the  year  1859  John  had  come 
to  about  the  limit  of  Mr.  Col  ton's  philological 
and  mathematical  knowledge,  while  in  his  historical 
studies  he  had  gone  far  beyond  Mr.  Col  ton;  nev- 
ertheless, he  continued  to  recite  to  him  till  July. 
His  regular  studies  during  this  period  were  Greek, 
Latin,  German,  French,  Spanish,  spherical  geometry , 
trigonometry,  and  conic  sections.  In  his  language 
studies  he  gave  much  time  to  theming  and  to  the 
careful  reading  of  classic  writers  in  each  language. 
In  one  of  his  letters  he  remarks:  "  I  have  just  done 
with  the  first  book  of  the  'Iliad.'  Splendid  but 
rather  hard  " ;  and  again :  "  I  am  studying  the  '  Iliad ' 
with  the  greatest  minuteness  through  the  first  six 
books.  I  shall  investigate  the  theme  and  history  of 
every  word.  The  remaining  18  books  I  shall  read 
straight  through."  He  also  reviewed  the  freshman 
studies  at  Yale. 

8s 


John  Fiske 

The  latter  part  of  July  he  went  to  Yale  and  took 
the  freshman  examinations  and  passed  very  credit- 
ably, as  appears  from  a  letter  of  July  26,  1859:  — 

"I  missed  only  one  question  and  that  was  in 
arithmetic.  A  tutor  asked  me  to  find  the  present 
worth  of  a  sum  of  money.  I  told  him  I  was  not  pre- 
pared on  mercantile  problems.  He  smiled  and  gave 
me  a  sum  in  square  root  of  decimals  which  I  did. 
Another  tutor  asked  me  for  the  3d  Prop.,  2d  book, 
Euclid.  I  gave  it,  demonstrated  it,  and  gave  the 
schol.  in  algebra.  Another  examined  me  a  long 
time  in  algebra  —  particularly  in  surds.  I  an- 
swered all  his  questions  without  hesitation,  did  the 
sums:  he  said, '  You  have  a  decided  taste  for  mathe- 
matics, have  n't  you?'  But  the  best  of  all  was  my 
examination  in  Greek  by  Prof.  Hadley.  I  read  two 
pages  without  stopping  to  look  it  over  beforehand. 
He  asked  me  to  decline  nouns,  conjugate  verbs,  etc., 
etc.;  then  points  in  syntax,  then  euphonic  laws; 
finally  a  lot  of  themes.  Said  he,  '  What  does  "  hyp- 
eresias"  come  from?'  (This  word  means  'hard 
labor'  and  means  *  hypo'  —  'under,'  'eiresia'  — 
' oars').  I  answered,  '  As  the  Greeks  must  have  had 
to  work  very  hard  in  order  to  propel  their  immense 
triremes,  I  suppose  they  called  anything  done  "un- 
der oars,"  "hard  service."  '  Said  he,  'That  is  suffi- 
cient for  you,  Mr.  Fiske.  I  see  that  your  preparation 
has  been  singularly  fine!' 

"Col ton  says  that  Hadley  was  delighted,  and 
astonished  at  me.  I  have  my  certificate  of  admis- 
sion signed  by  President  Porter." 

Having  passed  the  freshman  examination  at  Yale 
so  creditably,  John  now  has  a  strong  desire  to  post- 
86 


Decides  to  go  to  Harvard 

pone  his  college  entrance  for  another  year  and  to 
enter  Harvard  rather  than  Yale,  because,  as  he 
says,  "the  course  at  Harvard  is  very  different  and 
very  much  harder,"  another  reason  being  the  more 
liberal  intellectual  atmosphere  at  Harvard.  In 
pleading  his  case  he  says:  "It  is  true  that  the  in- 
struction at  Harvard  is  conducted  with  less  strict- 
ness than  at  Yale.  It  is  a  bad  place  for  a  careless 
scholar,  but  unequalled  in  facilities  for  an  ambi- 
tious one." 

In  his  desire  to  enter  Harvard  instead  of  Yale, 
John  had  his  way;  and  so  his  college  entrance  was 
again  postponed  and  for  another  year — until  Sep- 
tember, 1860. 

But  John's  desire  to  enter  Harvard  rather  than 
Yale  had  its  origin  in  quite  other  considerations 
than  those  arising  from  differences  in  methods  of  in- 
struction at  the  two  colleges.  In  fact,  the  change  of 
college  —  the  preference  of  Harvard  over  Yale  — 
was  only  one  of  the  effects  produced  by  the  great 
revolution  that  took  place  during  the  year  1859  in 
all  John's  inner  life. 

Before  following  him,  therefore,  in  his  prepara- 
tion for  and  his  entrance  at  Harvard,  we  must 
review  his  religious  inquiries  and  experiences  with 
their  causes  during  this  eventful  year,  for,  as  will 
appear,  all  his  subsequent  thinking  was  vitally 
affected  by  certain  philosophical  and  religious  con- 
clusions he  reached  at  this  time. 

We  have  seen  that  during  the  year  1858  John 

87 


John  Fiske 

was  pushing  his  inquiries  in  various  directions,  and 
particularly  along  the  lines  of  physical  phenomena 
and  human  history.  We  have  also  seen  that,  hav- 
ing accepted  in  all  sincerity  the  Calvinistic  faith  of 
his  family  and  of  his  Puritan  ancestors,  he  had 
entered  upon  the  observance  of  his  religious  duties 
with  great  earnestness. 

Actuated  by  such  a  desire  for  "the  knowledge 
that  leadeth  unto  wisdom,"  the  reading  of  Gibbon, 
Grote,  and  Humboldt  could  not  fail  to  stir  his 
thought  in  various  directions;  and  nothing  could  be 
more  in  the  order  of  his  thinking  than  that,  after 
converse  with  these  stimulating  and  suggestive 
minds,  in  addition  to  his  general  knowledge  of  clas- 
sic literature,  he  should  be  led  to  inquire,  in  the 
finest  spirit  of  a  Christian  believer,  into  the  founda- 
tions of  the  religious  faith  which  he  had  accepted 
as  embodying  the  highest  truth  vouchsafed  to  the 
human  mind. 

Certain  it  is  that,  at  the  opening  of  the  year,  he 
reveals  himself  as  earnestly  seeking  light  on  certain 
religious  problems  that  were  engaging  his  thought; 
and  that  we  may  the  better  follow  him  through  his 
own  personal  experiences  in  his  search  for  religious 
truth,  and  the  more  clearly  perceive  the  character 
of  the  religious  faith  he  did  so  much  to  promote,  we 
should  get  clearly  before  us  the  fundamental  dog- 
mas of  Christian  theology  with  their  verifications, 
which  he  found  confronting  him  as  an  ultimate 
philosophico-religious  system  at  the  opening  of  his 

88 


Religious  Questionings 

inquiries,  an  implicit  belief  in  which  was  regarded 
by  all  evangelical  Christians  as  the  essential  part  of 
all  true  religion. 

?  Then,  too,  it  is  highly  important  that  we  get 
these  dogmas,  with  their  implied  philosophic  sys- 
tem, clearly  before  us  at  this  stage  of  our  narrative, 
not  only  because  of  Fiske's  personal  experience  in 
emancipating  his  own  mind  from  their  baleful 
tyranny,  but  also  because  his  emancipation  was 
coincident  with  the  rise  of  the  philosophy  of  Evolu- 
tion,—  a  philosophy  based  on  science  and  "the 
sweet  reasonableness  of  the  human  mind,"  —  to 
the  setting  forth  the  religious  implications  of  which 
we  are  to  see  him,  at  his  maturity,  giving  the  full 
measure  of  his  powers  as  a  co-worker  with  the  most 
eminent  scientists  and  philosophic  thinkers  of  the 
time. 

These  dogmas  of  Christian  theology,  claiming  to 
be  the  presentation  of  ultimate  truth  as  to  the 
Infinite  Power  back  of  the  physical  universe  and 
of  conscious  man,  together  with  the  dealings  of 
this  Infinite  Power,  concisely  stated  were  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

Dogma  I.    The  Bible  a  sacred  Book.    Divinely  in- 
spired by  the  Infinite  Creator  of  the  cosmic  uni- 
verse it  contains  His  messages  to  man. 
The  Old  and  the  New  Testaments  contain  the 

Divine  Creator's  messages  to  man,  and  also  His 

covenants  regarding  man's  Fall,  his  Redemption, 

and  his  future  state. 

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John  Fiske 

These  Testaments  are  to  be  implicitly  accepted 
by  man  as  containing  the  highest  truth.  Sub- 
mitting these  divinely  inspired  records  to  criticism, 
in  the  light  of  science,  or  of  historic  evidence,  or  of 
reason,  is  infidelity ;  and  shows  a  want  of  faith  in  the 
Divine  Creator;  and  a  disbelief  in  His  method  of 
creating  and  sustaining  the  cosmic  universe,  in- 
cluding His  creation  and  subsequent  dealings  with 
conscious  man. 

Dogma  II.  The  Infinite  Creator  a  Trinitarian  God- 
head. 

The  assertion  of  an  eternal  uncreated  Trinitarian 
Godhead,  existing  from  everlasting  to  everlasting; 
omniscient  and  omnipotent;  just  and  terrible  in 
judgment,  yet  most  merciful  and  forgiving;  the 
Creator  of  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth  and  all  that 
in  them  is;  composed  of  three  Divine  Persons  in 
one:  — 

God  the  Father. 

God  the  Son. 

God  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  III.  The  creation  by  fiat  of  the  physical  uni- 
verse by  God  the  Father,  and  His  direct  personal 
care  and  supervision  of  it. 

The  assertion  of  the  creation  of  the  inorganic 
physical  universe  out  of  hand  in  definite  time  by  the 
omnipotent  power  of  God  the  Father  and  its  sus- 
tentation  and  control  by  His  ever  watchful  care. 
This  dogma  makes  the  whole  physical  universe  sub- 
ject not  to  universal  law,  but  to  the  temporary  will 
of  the  asserted  Creator. 

90 


Christian  Dogmas 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  I V.   The  creation  of  the  organic  world  of  vege- 
tal and   animal  phenomena  out   of  hand   by 
Divine  fiat;  their  endowment  with  the  property  of 
life  and  its  power  of  propagation. 
The  assertion  that  the  creation  of  the  vegetal 
and  animal  kingdoms,  with  all  their  multifarious 
forms  of  existences,  was  done  out  of  hand,  in  defi- 
nite time,  by  the  omnipotent  power  of  God;  and 
that  he  endowed  these  creations  of  His  hand  with 
the  mysterious  property  of  life,  and  its  power  of 
propagation. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  V.  The  creation  of  man  as  a  perfect  being; 
his  disobedience  and  fall;  his  condemnation;  the 
total  depravity  of  the  human  race. 

The  assertion  that  God  created,  out  of  hand, 
Adam  and  Eve  in  His  own  likeness,  as  perfect  hu- 
man beings  and  as  the  progenitors  of  the  human 
race;  that  Adam  wilfully  disobeyed  God's  express 
command;  that  God  thereupon  condemned  Adam 
and  his  posterity  to  eternal  punishment  therefor  — 
thereby  establishing  the  total  depravity  of  the  hu- 
man race. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  VI.   God  plans  man's  redemption  and  salva- 
tion through  His  Son;  the  Covenant  of  Grace. 
The  assertion  that  God  the  Father  mercifully 
stayed  His  hand,  and  devised  a  scheme  for  man's 


John  Fiske 

redemption  and  salvation  through  His  Son;  who  in 
the  fulness  of  time  was  to  descend  from  Heaven ;  was 
to  be  miraculously  born  into  the  world;  and  was  to 
reveal  God's  complete  plan,  and  give  God's  com- 
plete message  to  man.  This  Son  was  then  to  be 
crucified;  was  to  arise  from  the  dead  and  ascend 
into  Heaven  and  resume  His  place  at  the  right  hand 
of  God  the  Father  in  the  final  judgment  of  man- 
kind. Only  those  who  believe  in  the  Divinity  of 
the  Son  arid  His  divine  mission  were  to  be  saved. 
The  only  verification  of  this  stupendous  dogma 
presented  to  human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  VII.  God  chooses  the  Hebrew  people  as  a 
special  portion  of  the  human  race  through  whom 
to  carry  out  His  plan  for  man's  redemption  and 
salvation. 

It  is  asserted  that  God  selected  the  Jews  as  a 
chosen  people  for  the  carrying  out  of  His  purpose; 
that  He  revealed  Himself  to  them  exclusively; 
that  He  gave  them  an  inspired  record  of  His  crea- 
tion of  the  universe  and  its  creatures;  that  He 
gave  them  a  code  of  laws  written  on  stone  with  His 
own  hand ;  that  by  inspired  messages  He  prescribed 
how  they  should  worship  Him,  as  well  as  the  main 
features  of  their  social  intercourse;  that  by  many 
miracles  He  attested  His  watchful  care  over  them, 
as  well  as  His  displeasure  at  their  sinful  acts;  that, 
above  all,  He  kept  alive  in  their  minds,  through  the 
inspired  teachings  of  their  Prophets,  their  belief 
that  in  the  fulness  of  time  their  Messiah  or  Re- 
deemer would  come. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

92 


Christian  Dogmas 

Dogma  VIII.   Christ  appears  on  earth  as  the  Son  of 
God  and  as  man's  Redeemer:  His  perfect  life; 
His  crucifixion;  His  resurrection;  His  ascension. 
It  is  asserted  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  Christ  appeared  in  Judea  as  the  Son  of 
God ;  that  He  had  a  miraculous  birth ;  that  He  was 
anointed  with  the  Holy  Spirit;  that  He  led  a  per- 
fect life;  that  He  taught  the  doctrines  ascribed  to 
Him;  that  He  performed  miracles;  that  He  was 
crucified;  that  He  arose  from  the  dead;  that  He 
ascended  into  Heaven. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented 
to  human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  IX.    The  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

It  is  asserted  that  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
took  place  at  a  Pentecostal  festival;  that  it  was  a 
visible  confirmation  of  the  Divine  mission  of  Christ; 
that  it  was  an  assurance  to  the  Apostles  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  would  henceforth  be  an  ever-active 
Divine  force  in  the  world,  tending  to  lead  men  to 
believe  that  God  was  still  merciful ;  and  to  embrace 
Christ  as  their  only  means  of  salvation. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  X.    Resurrection  —  A  Day  of  Judgment  — • 

Immortality. 

This  dogma  is  presented  as  physical  phenomena 
yet  to  come,  in  the  working-out  of  the  Divine  plan 
for  man's  redemption  and  salvation.  There  is  to  be 
a  Day  of  Judgment,  when  Christ  is  to  appear  in  great 
power  and  glory,  when  the  dead  are  to  be  raised 

93 


John  Fiske 

and  all  mankind  are  to  be  judged  in  righteous- 
ness for  conduct  here  on  earth.  The  righteous  are 
then  to  be  separated  from  the  wicked  and  awarded 
eternal  joy  in  Heaven;  while  the  wicked  or  the  un- 
redeemed are  to  be  condemned  to  eternal  punish- 
ment in  Hell.  Christ's  resurrection  and  ascension 
are  adduced  as  physical  proofs  of  the  dogma. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Dogma  XL  The  existence  of  Satan,  an  evil  spirit  in 
rebellion  against  God  the  Father,  and  ever  active 
in  endeavours  to  thwart  God's  holy  purposes  re- 
garding man. 

Until  recent  years  the  existence  of  Satan  as  a  re- 
bellious spirit  of  superhuman  power  was  asserted 
by  Christian  theology  with  hardly  less  positiveness 
than  was  the  existence  of  God  Himself/  To  the  in- 
spiration of  Satan  was  attributed  much  of  the  crime 
and  wickedness  which  afflict  mankind;  and  fifty 
years  ago  Satan  and  his  machinations  to  draw  per- 
sons to  his  abode  were  not  exceptional  topics  for 
pulpit  discourses. 

The  only  verifications  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  are  Dogma  I  and  Milton's  "Para- 
dise Lost." 

Dogma  XII.  Heaven  and  Hell. 

It  is  asserted  that  Heaven  is  God's  holy  dwelling- 
place  somewhere  beyond  the  conception  of  the  hu- 
man mind;  where  the  Redeemed  of  earth  are  to 
enjoy  the  Divine  Trinity  in  company  with  the  holy 
angels  forever;  that  Hell  is  a  place  somewhere  set 
apart  where  the  unredeemed  of  earth  are  to  suffer 

94 


Christian  Dogmas 

endless  punishment  in  company  with  Satan  and 
other  evil  spirits. 

The  only  verification  of  this  dogma  presented  to 
human  reason  is  Dogma  I. 

Professor  Eucken  has  well  said:  "There  is  a  tre- 
mendous logic  about  the  development  of  these  dog- 
mas which  cannot  be  broken  in  the  middle:  he  who 
wants  one  cannot  refuse  the  others."  1 

These  dogmas  were  venerable  in  their  antiquity, 
and  in  their  origin  and  historic  development  they 
were  a  connecting  link  between  the  philosophico- 
religious  systems  of  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
world  —  in  fact,  it  was  claimed  that  they  embodied 
and  transcended  all  the  higher  phases  of  ancient 
philosophy.  Considered  by  themselves  these  dog- 
mas presented  a  mighty  drama  of  existences  wherein 
God,  the  physical  universe,  organic  life,  conscious 
man,  virtue  and  sin  were  all  accounted  for;  and 
wherein  man's  religious  and  moral  duties  in  the 
conduct  of  life  with  their  rewards  and  penalties 
were  distinctly  set  forth  —  the  whole  presenting  a 
complete  and  rounded  philosophico-religious  sys- 
tem embracing  all  existences  with  the  Ultimate 
Cause  and  teleological  purpose  underlying  the  whole. 

This  mighty  drama  was  presented  to  human  rea- 
son as  resting  upon  one  fundamental  fact  —  which 
must  in  no  way  be  questioned  —  the  fact  that  the 
Bible,  the  sole  authority  for  the  scheme,  was  a 
divinely  inspired  Book  and  contained  God's  mes- 

1  Eucken  and  Historical  Christianity,  by  E.  Hermann,  p.  107. 

95 


John  Fiske 

sages  to  man,  and  hence  transcended  all  other 
knowledge.  During  the  Christian  centuries  great 
thinkers  had  beaten  these  dogmas  into  shape  and 
had  related  them  for  ready  comprehension  by 
the  common  mind  until  they  had  become,  as  it 
were,  integral  parts  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
Christian  world,  while  upon  them  had  been  or- 
ganized a  vast  system  of  ecclesiasticism  through 
which  the  spiritual  relations  between  God  and  man 
enshrouded  in  the  dogmas  were  presented  to  im- 
agination and  to  religious  faith  in  the  most  impres- 
sive forms  of  architecture,  literature,  music,  and  art. 
It  is  becoming  somewhat  the  fashion,  in  these 
later  days  of  science  and  new  religions,  to  look  with 
a  feeling  akin  to  supercilious  disdain  upon  these 
dogmas  and  to  credit  them  with  but  little  good  in 
the  moral  and  intellectual  development  of  man- 
kind. We  may  admit  the  gross  anthropomorphic  as 
well  as  the  mythical  character  that  pervades  them ; 
the  bitter  persecutions  and  the  terrible  destruction 
of  human  life  that  have  attended  their  promulga- 
tion as  a  system  of  religious  faith  may  all  be  ad- 
mitted; yet  it  must  be  conceded  that  these  dogmas 
have  enshrouded  far  beyond  any  other  religious 
system  a  religious  truth  of  the  utmost  significance; 
a  truth  which  was  dimly  apprehended  in  the  an- 
cient civilizations,  and  which  philosophic  thinkers 
of  all  ages  have  recognized  as  lying  back  of  all  ex- 
periential knowledge;  a  truth  which  by  its  majes- 
tic spiritual  import  held  European  society  together 

96 


Christian  Dogmas 

during  the  turbulent  period  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  which  modern  science  is  now  confirming  as 
the  ultimate  truth  of  all  cosmic  phenomena  —  the 
existence  of  an  Infinite  Eternal  Power  from  whom 
all  things  have  proceeded;  whose  Divine  nature 
is  reflected  in  the  universe  of  material  things,  but 
most  of  all  in  the  moral  consciousness  of  man, 
and  that  this  Eternal  Power  is  ever  further  reveal- 
ing itself  through  the  moral  progress  of  the  race. 
Now,  it  is  an  inevitable  corollary  to  this  ultimate 
truth  of  science  —  the  revealing  of  the  Infinite 
Divine  Power  through  moral  man —  that  between 
the  Divine  Creator  and  the  individual  human  soul 
there  is,  and  always  has  been,  a  direct  spiritual  re- 
lation which  is  strengthened  as  the  cosmic  knowl- 
edge and  the  moral  life  of  man  broadens. 

Viewed  in  this  light  these  dogmas  have  borne  an 
important  part  in  the  intellectual  and  moral  de- 
velopment of  mankind.  During  the  long  period  in 
which  man  was  slowly  stumbling  forward  with  his 
scientific  knowledge  to  a  rational  conception  of  the 
physical  universe,  the  conscious  human  mind,  and 
the  Infinite  Eternal  Power  lying  back  of  both,  these 
dogmas  enshrouded  this  great  religious  truth:  that 
between  this  Infinite  Eternal  Power  and  every  in- 
dividual soul  there  exists  a  direct  spiritual  relation 
which  is  ever  working  to  greater  fulness  of  individ- 
ual life  —  a  truth  which  man's  arts,  in  their  varied 
forms  of  architecture,  painting,  sculpture,  litera- 
ture, and  music,  fully  confirm. 

97 


John  Fiske 

With  the  progress  of  modern  science,  this  great 
religious  truth  has  been  undergoing  a  steady  pro- 
cess of  dogmatic  denudation ;  and  as  this  denuding 
process  has  gone  forward,  the  great  enshrouded 
truth  has  ever  come  forth  in  a  clearer  light  as  of 
vital  significance  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  well- 
being  of  mankind. 

During  the  middle  period  of  the  last  century 
there  came  a  number  of  culminating  discoveries  in 
the  physical,  the  biological,  the  psychological,  the 
philological,  and  the  sociological  sciences,  accom- 
panied by  results  in  Biblical  criticism,  which  en- 
tirely discredited  the  dogmatic  assertion  of  the 
special  Divine  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  thereby 
•completely  annulling  the  binding  force  of  the  Chris- 
tian dogmas  as  ultimate  truth. 

The  nature  and  the  full  philosophic  bearing  of 
these  discoveries  will  appear  a  little  later  when  we 
come  to  consider  the  philosophy  based  on  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution.  In  1859  the  Christian  world 
was  discussing  these  discoveries,  with  the  results  of 
Biblical  criticism  thrown  in,  mainly  from  the  view- 
point of  dogmatic  theology;  and  thus  a  new  phase 
was  given  to  the  long  contest  between  theology  and 
science. 

In  this  contest  the  most  eminent  theologians 

took  a  hand.    They  saw  that  they  were  facing  a 

more    serious  issue  than  ever    before,   and  they 

rushed  with  the  utmost  vehemence  to  the  defence 

1  See  vol.  n,  chap.  xx. 

98 


Christian  Dogmas 

of  the  Christian  dogmas  as  the  embodiment  of  Di- 
vine truth.  They  were  unsparing  in  their  condem^ 
nations  of  the  new  revelations  of  science  and  in 
Biblical  criticism  as  the  height  of  infidelity,  as  de- 
liberate attempts  to  invalidate  the  truths  of  re- 
vealed religion.1  In  the  crusade  against  these  new 
forms  of  infidelity  no  terms  of  objurgation  were  too 
severe  against  such  fair-minded  investigators  as 
Lyell,  Hooker,  Asa  Gray,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Wal- 
lace, Darwin,  Mayer,  Faraday,  Joule,  and  Helm- 
hoi  tz;  or  against  such  rational  critics  as  the  au- 
thors of  "Essays  and  Reviews,"  Matthew  Arnold, 
Buckle,  Renan,  and  the  Tubingen  School ;  or  against 
such  noble  religious  teachers  as  Channing,  Emerson, 
Theodore  Parker,  and  Bishop  Colenso.  In  fact,  the 
immediate  effect  of  the  new  revelations  of  science 
and  of  Biblical  criticism  was  a  hardening  of  the 
theologic  heart  against  all  scientific  knowledge  and 
against  any  questioning  of  the  special  Divine  in- 
spiration of  the  Scriptures,  resulting  in  an  emphatic 
reassertion  of  the  old  dogmatic  claim  that  there 
was,  and  must  ever  remain,  a  broad  line  of  de- 
marcation between  the  sacred  truths  of  theology 
and  the  experiential  knowledge  derived  from  soci- 

1  People  whose  memories  go  back  to  fifty  years  ago  can  recall 
sermons  by  scholarly  clergymen,  in  which  it  was  seriously  main- 
tained that  the  palaeontological  discoveries  attesting  man's  animal 
origin  and  great  antiquity  were  but  evidences  of  the  adroit  work  of 
Satan  in  creating  these  fossils,  and  so  distributing  them  as  to  confuse 
men's  minds  in  regard  to  the  Divine  truth  of  creation  revealed  in 
Genesis.  Happily  the  days  for  such  presentations  of  Divine  truth 
no  longer  exist. 

99 


John  Fiske 

ology  and  science;  in  short,  that  the  latter  must 
ever  be  interpreted  by  the  former. 

John  Fiske  was  seventeen  years  old  when  his 
rapidly  expanding  mind,  eager  in  its  search  for 
truth,  was  brought  within  the  circle  of  this  pro- 
found discussion  between  dogmatic  theology  on  the 
one  hand  and  science  and  Biblical  criticism  on  the 
other.  It  was  not  in  his  nature  to  do  things  by 
halves;  and  his  religious  feelings  being  as  we  have 
seen  thoroughly  aroused,  and  his  inquiries  showing 
him  that  the  religious  faith  he  had  accepted  rested 
wholly  upon  these  dogmas  as  truths  of  the  highest 
import,  he  could  not  rest  content  until  he  had 
brought  them  together  and  interrelated  them  in 
his  own  mind.  When  he  had  done  this,  when  he 
had  got  them  with  all  their  implications  inter- 
related as  into  a  complete  and  rounded  whole,  it 
then  appeared  that  the  religion  founded  on  these 
dogmas  did  not  present  as  its  vital  elements  the 
love  of  a  Divine  Creator  "who  doeth  all  things 
well,"  and  ethical  conduct  among  men  as  the  es- 
sential condition  for  individual  fulness  of  life,  so 
much  as  it  emphasized  a  belief  in  certain  super- 
natural phenomena  that  were  to  be  accepted  wholly 
on  faith.  In  fact,  it  appeared  that  the  real  religious 
elements  —  love  to  God  and  love  to  man  —  were 
so  completely  enshrouded  in  a  series  of  unverifia- 
ble  assertions  in  regard  to  God,  the  physical  uni- 
verse, and  man,  that  it  was  not  only  impossible 

100 


Dogma  and  Science 

to  bring  the  reasoning  mind  to  bear  upon  them 
in  any  rational  way ;  it  also  appeared  as  the  purpose 
of  the  dogmas  —  if  they  may  be  said  to  have  had 
a  purpose  —  so  to  stifle  the  mind  in  its  aspiration 
for  religious  truth  that  it  should  be  forever  re- 
strained from  seeking  other  light  on  the  great  prob- 
lems of  existence  than  that  vouchsafed  by  the 
dogmas  themselves. 

The  collocation  of  these  dogmas,  therefore, 
started  trains  of  thought  in  John's  mind  in  various 
directions.  He  saw  more  clearly  than  ever  before 
why  in  Christian  literature  so  much  importance 
was  attached  to  the  dogma  of  the  special  inspira- 
tion of  the  Scriptures  —  the  placing  of  the  Bible  in 
authority  over  and  above  all  other  sources  of 
knowledge.  He  saw  that  this  was  done,  not  be- 
cause of  the  intrinsic  religious  truth  the  Bible  con- 
tained, —  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  to  man,  — 
but  because  such  an  alleged  divinely  inspired  record 
of  God's  dealings  with  man  was  necessitated  as  a 
foundation  for  the  scheme  of  Man's  creation,  his 
fall,  his  redemption  through  Christ,  and  the  condi- 
tions of  his  future  existence,  as  well  as  for  the  plac- 
ing of  the  scheme  beyond  the  reach  of  any  criticism 
based  on  verifiable  knowledge. 

John's  reason  at  once  stumbled  over  this  stu- 
pendous assumption  of  the  Divine  authority  of  the 
Biblical  record,  at  this  placing  all  other  knowledge 
subordinate  to  it,  at  this  begging  the  whole  theolog- 
ico-religious  question  at  the  outset.  As  he  studied 

101 


John  Fiske 

his  Bible  and  brought  under  review  his  historic  and 
scientific  knowledge,  and  saw  how  radically  the  pro- 
foundly impressive  scientific  record  of  the  devel- 
opment of  the  cosmos  and  its  inhabitants,  as  in- 
terpreted by  Humboldt,  Lyell,  and  the  biologists, 
differed  from  the  crude,  childish  cosmogony  of  Gen- 
esis, and  how  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  civiliza- 
tions, which  knew  not  the  Christian  dogmas,  yet 
presented,  as  interpreted  by  Grote  and  Gibbon, 
some  points  of  moral  and  religious  advantage  over 
Christian  civilization,  John's  whole  religious  nature 
was  deeply  stirred  by  the  manifest  incongruities 
between  the  revelation  of  the  Divine  Creator  as 
asserted  by  dogma  and  the  verifiable  revelation 
given  by  science  and  by  history.  He  began  to  ques- 
tion in  the  very  sincerity  of  his  heart,  "  Is  this 
Christian  religion  as  set  forth  in  these  dogmas  the 
ultimate  measure  of  the  Infinite  Creator  of  the 
physical  universe,  of  the  human  soul?    Can  it  be 
true  that  this  religion  is  a  veritable  form  of  worship 
and  conduct  instituted  by  the  Divine  Creator  of  all 
things  for  man's  special  behoof  and  salvation;  is  the 
human  race  under  such  a  fearful  doom ;  and  do  such 
portentous  consequences  to  the  eternal  future  of  all 
mankind  depend  upon  individual  acceptance  of  the 
conditions  of  salvation  as  set  forth  in  these  dogmas?  " 
Similar  questions  have  often  arisen  in  the  minds 
of  sincere  Christian  believers,  and  Christian  litera- 
ture has  many  answers.    John's  answer  was  the 
complete  emancipation  of  his  mind  from  bondage 

102 


Dogma  and  Science 

to  these  dogmas,  his  firm  grasp  of  the  vital  religious 
truth  that  they  partially  revealed,  and  his  subse- 
quent efforts  to  set  forth  this  truth,  not  simply  as 
consistent  with,  but  rather  as  the  necessary  com- 
plement to  the  broadest  scientific  knowledge  —  in 
a  word,  his  answer  was  his  intellectual  life  as  we  are 
to  see  it  unfold  from  this  point.1 

1  Years  after,  in  a  conversation  I  had  with  Fiske  in  regard  to  these 
dogmas  and  the  hold  they  had  on  the  evangelical  Christian  mind 
down  to  the  promulgation  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  he  said  in 
substance :  — 

"  I  can  never  forget  the  feeling  of  revulsion  I  experienced  when  I 
first  brought  these  dogmas  together  in  my  mind  as  an  interrelated 
whole.  I  had  received  them  from  time  to  time  as  elements  in  the  re- 
ligious faith  which  I  had  accepted  as  Divine,  without  any  question 
whatever.  When,  however,  in  my  seventeenth  year,  I  sought  to 
bring  my  religious  views  under  a  rational  interpretation,  I  found  it 
was  required  that  these  dogmas  should  first  be  posited  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  all  ultimate  truth.  I  then  tried  to  get  clearly  before  me 
the  scheme  of  cosmic  creation  and  sustentation  which  these  dogmas 
set  forth;  and  what  a  mighty  drama  of  Infinite  and  finite  coexistences 
stood  revealed !  Both  orders  of  existences  appeared  as  inextricably 
immeshed  in  a  mass  of  metaphysical  assumptions,  wherein  science 
was  disowned,  where  reason  was  discredited,  and  where  blind,  un- 
questioning faith  was  regarded  as  the  only  passport  to  true  Christian 
knowledge.  Fortunately  science  was  then  giving  a  nobler  and  a  more 
verifiable  knowledge  in  regard  to  cosmic  creation  and  the  meaning  of 
human  life,  as  well  as  yielding  a  far  higher  conception  of  the  Infinite 
Power  back  of  the  cosmos  than  could  be  derived  from  these  dogmas, 
and  I  was  not  long  in  freeing  my  mind  from  their  benumbing  influence. 

"With  more  mature  thought,  I  came  to  see  the  great  spiritual 
truth  enshrouded  in  these  dogmas;  and  a  wider  acquaintance  with 
the  philosophy  of  history,  led  me  to  see  that  the  dogmatic  coverings 
of  this  great  truth  had  been  of  immense  service  in  its  protection 
and  its  development  while  knowledge  was  slowly  being  organized 
through  science,  for  its  verification  in  human  experience.  And  now 
the  Christian  world  is  beginning  to  see  that  religious  and  social 
progress  consists  mainly  in  the  freeing  of  this  great  spiritual  truth 
from  the  dogmatic  wrappings  it  has  outgrown." 


CHAPTER  VI 

SELF-PREPARATION  TO  ENTER  HARVARD  AS  SOPH- 
OMORE—  WIDE  READING  —  BREAKS  AWAY  FROM 
CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY  —  SOCIAL  OSTRACISM  — 
LEAVES  MIDDLETOWN  FOR  CAMBRIDGE 

1859-1860 

THUS  far  we  have  been  tracing  the  life  of  John  Fiske 
through  his  boyhood  and  youth  under  the  influence 
of  his  family  and  his  home  surroundings,  his  ele- 
mentary schooling  and  his  preparation  and  his 
passing  the  examinations  for  entrance  at  Yale  Col- 
lege. We  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  note  his 
strong  self-propulsion  for  knowledge,  his  orderly 
methods  of  study,  his  remarkable  intellectual  at- 
tainments, his  high  ideals  of  the  life  of  a  scholar, 
and  his  deep  religious  convictions.  We  are  now  to 
follow  him  into  a  broader  field  of  experiences,  and 
for  the  ensuing  four  years  particularly  we  are  to 
observe  him  as  intellectually  developing  under  three 
closely  interrelated  conditions:  in  his  preparation 
for  and  as  an  undergraduate  at  Harvard;  as  a 
student  of  philosophy  and  religion  in  the  new  era 
of  scientific  thought  then  opening ;  and  in  his  stead- 
ily widening  social  relations.  To  use  Mr.  Spencer's 
definition  of  life:  we  are  to  observe  him  during  this 
formative  period  in  his  "continuous  adjustment  of 

104 


Preparation  for  Harvard 

internal  relations  to  external  relations."  This  plan 
of  observing  him  will  entail  considerable  particu- 
larity in  regard  to  the  external  relations. 

It  having  been  settled  in  August,  1859,  that 
John  should  enter  Harvard  instead  of  Yale,  he  de- 
termined to  enter  as  sophomore  or  junior;  and  to 
prepare  for  such  an  advanced  entrance,  he  planned 
for  several  months'  study  by  himself  in  Middle- 
town  and  then  to  finish  with  a  tutor  at  Cambridge. 
His  plans  for  his  studies  show  the  same  orderly  pre- 
vision we  have  had  occasion  to  note  in  previous 
years.  Each  study  had  its  hour  and  its  time  limit. 
In  the  required  languages  at  Harvard  he  was  al- 
ready prepared;  nevertheless,  he  took  up  Latin, 
Greek,  and  German  with  fresh  ardor,  and  added 
Italian  and  Hebrew  thereto;  he  also  provided  for 
persistent  comparative  study  of  the  structural  fea- 
tures of  the  several  languages  supplemented  by  care- 
ful readings  in  the  classics  of  each.  In  mathematics 
he  prepared  to  review  his  geometry  and  algebra,  to 
go  twice  over  the  freshman  requirements,  and  to 
anticipate  some  of  the  sophomore  requirements, 
and  to  finish  in  Cambridge.1 

1  The  following  is  a  list  of  the  textbooks  and  philological  and  classi- 
cal works  studied  during  this  preparatory  period :  Becker's  German 
Grammar,  Key's  Latin  Grammar,  Ollendorff's  French  Grammar,  Xeno- 
phon's  Anabasis  (ed.  Anthon),  Xenophon's  Cyropadia  (ed.  Owen), 
Virgil's  jEneid  (ed.  Ladewig),  Sallust's  De  Bello  Jugurthino  (ed. 
Jacobi),  Caesar's  De  Bello  Gallico  (ed.  Kraner),  Fenelon's  Telemaque, 
Iliad,  lib.  l-vi  (ed.  Anthon),  Chapman's  Homeric  Hymns,  Ciceroni's 
Orationes  Selectee,  Sallust's  De  Conjuratione  Catilina  (ed.  Jacobi), 
Arnold's  Latin  Prose  Composition,  Part  I,  Eaton's  Elements  of  Arith- 
metic, Day's  Algebra,  Euclid's  Elements  (ed.  Playfair),  Racine's  Les 

105 


John  Fiske 

Having  thus  laid  out  his  preparatory  course  he 
writes  his  mother  in  a  moment  of  gratulation: 
"How  thankful  for  Harvard  and  self,  instead  of 
Yale  and  Col  ton. " 

While  this  self-imposed  course  was  substantially 
carried  out,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  by  mid- 
winter, 1860,  his  scientific  and  philosophic  reading 
had  awakened  in  his  mind  the  importance,  in  a 
truly  philosophical  education,  of  a  knowledge  of 
science  in  addition  to  a  knowledge  of  the  languages 
and  mathematics.  Accordingly  he  puts  this  ques- 
tion to  his  mother:  "Would  a  scientific  education 
be  of  advantage  to  me  or  not?  This  question  I 
would  like  some  experienced  person  to  answer.  I 
am  inclined  that  way,  though  I  love  classical  studies 
and  find  no  trouble  in  them.  A  scientific  course 
which  includes  the  sciences  and  German  would  not 
interfere  with  my  private  study  of  Latin  and  Greek. 
I  shall  read  all  the  works  of  antiquity  anyway." 
He  appears  to  have  answered  the  question  himself, 
and  by  a  preparation  in  science  which  was  not  at  all 
called  for  at  Harvard  at  that  time.  ! 

Frdres  Ennemis,  and  his  Alexandre,  DeStaeTs  UAllemagne,  Peirce's 
Geometry,  Vergani's  Italian  Grammar,  Gesenius's  Hebrew  Grammar 
(begun),  Peirce's  Algebra  and  Trigonometry. 

1  His  scientific  reading  during  1859  and  the  early  part  of  1860 
comprised  the  following  works:  Agassiz's  Principles  of  Zoology  and 
his  Essay  on  Classification,  Johnston's  Natural  History,  Turner's 
Chemistry,  Lambert's  Practical  Anatomy  and  Physiology,  Lardner's 
Astronomy  and  Physics,  Chambers's  Elements  of  Zoology,  Milne- 
Edwards's  Elemens  de  Zoology,  Cuvier's  Le  Regne  Animal,  Redfield's 
Zoology,  Herschel's  Outlines  of  Astronomy,  Laplace's  Systeme  du 
Monde,  Dalton's  Human  Physiology,  Peaslee's  Human  Histology, 

1 06 


Wide  Reading 

His  thoughtful  manner  of  self-study  is  indicated 
by  his  passing  remarks  anent  his  studies  in  the 
languages  and  in  classic  literature.  Speaking  of 
language  he  says:  "It  is  the  objective  correla- 
tive to  the  subjective  reason  or  mind";  and  in 
speaking  of  the  origin  of  languages  we  have  this: 
"The  similarities  of  languages  do  not  prove  that 
they  all  sprang  from  one  primitive  dialect."  These 
remarks  are  indicative  of  his  mental  alertness 
in  grasping  significant  points  in  his  studies.  But 
here  is  something  that  is  distinctly  self-reveal- 
ing. He  has  procured  a  copy  of  Rawlinson's  He- 
rodotus containing  the  discoveries  revealed  by  the 
cuneiform  writings,  and  he  is  jubilant:  "Just  the 
thing,"  he  says,  "to  read  with  Grote!  How  blest  I 
am  to  learn  such  things  before  college!  What  a 
treasure  to  the  mind  is  a  critical  and  extensive 
acquaintance  with  ancient  history!  Grote  is  a  phil- 
osopher; he  lays  open  the  Hellenic  mind  and  traces 
beautiful  thoughts  and  lovely  guesses  on  every 

Wilson's  Human  Anatomy,  Dunglison's  Human  Physiology,  Gray's 
Structural  and  Systematic  Botany,  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species,  Ves- 
tiges of  the  Natural  History  of  Creation,  Viery's  Philosophic  de  V His- 
toric Naturelle,  Ampere's  Sur  la  Philosophic  des  Sciences,  Thompson's 
Inorganic  Chemistry,  Williams's  Principles  of  Medicine. 

In  years  to  come,  we  are  to  see  him  discussing  questions  of  the 
highest  philosophic  import  growing  out  of  the  interrelations  between 
the  physiological  and  the  psychological  forces  in  the  human  organism. 
We  may  marvel  at  his  ready  command  of  the  varied  scientific  knowl- 
edge involved  in  the  discussions.  We  should  note  here,  therefore, 
that  in  this  self-directed  scientific  study  and  reading  of  this  early 
period,  we  have  the  beginning  of  his  scientific  acquisitions;  and  the 
thing  to  be  particularly  noted  is  the  fundamental  character  and  the 
high  quality  of  these  acquisitions. 

107 


John  Fiske 

page.   His  chapter  on  Socrates  is  perfectly  enrap- 
turing."1 

John's  preparation  for  Harvard  was  completed 
at  Cambridge;  but  before  entering  upon  that  very 
interesting  phase  of  his  preparatory  work,  we  must 
stop  to  note  quite  another  phase  in  his  life  in  Mid- 
dletown  during  the  year  1859  and  the  early  part  of 
1860  from  that  of  the  preparatory  student  we  have 
been  considering. 

We  have  seen  that  during  the  latter  half  of  1858 
he  was  greatly  interested  in  ancient  history  as 
portrayed  by  Rollin  and  by  Grote,  and  also  in 
the  development  of  the  physical  universe  as  pre- 
sented by  Humboldt.  During  these  months,  there- 
fore, while  all  this  preparation,  first  for  Yale,  and 
then  for  Harvard,  was  going  forward,  questions 
of  the  highest  import  in  religion  and  philosophy 
were  engaging  his  mind. 

Humboldt's  "  Cosmos "  was  one  of  the  really 
great  works  of  the  middle  period  of  the  last  century. 
Its  encyclopaedic  learning,  its  lucid  arrangement  of 
subject-matter,  its  eminent  fairness  on  controverted 
points,  and  its  entire  freedom  from  dogmatic  pre- 
suppositions gave  it  the  character  of  an  impartial 
textbook  of  physical  science;  while  its  record  of 
wide  and  rare  personal  experiences,  all  given  in  a 
graphic,  easy-flowing  style,  secured  for  it  a  wide 
circulation  among  fair-minded  readers  throughout 
the  world.  It  was  a  masterly  summing-up  of  the 
1  See  Grote  on  Ffeke,  post,  p.  312. 
1 08 


Humboldt  and  Grote 

results  of  cosmic  science,  a  presentation  of  the 
cosmic  universe  as  "that  which  is  ever  growing 
and  unfolding  in  new  forms, "  and  it  came  as  a  sig- 
nificant preparation  for  the  doctrine  of  Evolution 
which  was  soon  to  follow. 

John  read  this  work  with  deep  interest,  and  he 
could  not  but  contrast  the  physical  universe  as 
presented  by  Humboldt  accompanied  by  positive, 
scientific  verifications,  with  the  wholly  different 
presentation  given  by  dogmatic  theology  without 
any  scientific  verifications  whatever.  His  question- 
ing of  the  theological  dogmas  as  the  embodiment 
of  all  ultimate  truth  had  its  origin,  therefore, 
in  1858  when  he  was  reading  Humboldt's  great 
work  contemporaneously  with  Grote's  "  History  of 
Greece."  1 

This  questioning  once  started  in  Fiske's  mind 
could  not  be  suppressed;  the  more  he  investigated 
and  reflected,  the  greater  seemed  the  variance  be- 
tween the  positive,  verifiable  truths  of  science  and 
the  unverifiable  claims  of  theology.  And  his  his- 
torical reading  perplexed  him  still  more.  Early  in 
1859  he  took  up  Gibbon's  "  History  of  Rome,"  and 
Gibbon's  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  chapters  in  addi- 
tion to  Grote's  portrayal  of  Hellenic  civilization  led 
him  seriously  to  question  the  credibility  of  much 
of  the  Biblical  history.  The  points  of  contrast  be- 
tween the  Hellenic  and  the  Jewish  civilizations 
were  great  and  showed  much  in  favor  of  the  former 
1  See  ante,  pp.  84,  88. 
109 


John  Fiske 

over  the  latter.  If  dogmatic  theology  was  true,  then 
the  whole  Hellenic  civilization  was  foolishness,  and 
its  great  exemplars,  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle, 
were  expiating  for  misspent  lives  in  Hell. 

John's  reason  was  staggered  with  such  a  confron- 
tation, and  he  reveals  himself  during  the  early  part 
of  1859  as  in  a  greatly  perturbed  state  of  mind  over 
his  religious  questioning  and  as  earnestly  seeking 
light.  He  was  greatly  encouraged  in  his  search  for 
truth  by  contact  with  two  congenial  minds  —  the 
Reverend  John  Langdon  Dudley,  pastor  of  the 
South  Congregational  Church,  Middletown,  and 
his  student  friend,  George  Litch  Roberts. 

Mr.  Dudley,  although  the  pastor  of  an  orthodox 
Congregational  church,  was  a  clergyman  of  exceed- 
ingly liberal  views  for  the  time.  In  philosophic 
thought  he  was  a  sort  of  Fichtean  Emersonian 
Transcendentalist,  who  was  endeavoring  to  find 
points  of  agreement  between  the  assumptions  of 
Christian  theology  and  the  claims  of  the  Transcen- 
dentalists  of  the  innate  existence  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  man  of  the  Divine  Immanence  that  makes  for 
righteousness.  Mr.  Dudley  was  cheerily  optimistic 
in  his  religious  faith  and  saw  the  good  in  life.  He 
was  a  great  comfort  to  John  at  this  time,  for  he 
had  a  sympathetic,  appreciative  feeling  for  the  ex- 
perience through  which  the  latter  was  passing.  We 
shall  meet  with  him  in  years  to  come. 

Young  Roberts,  as  we  have  seen,  had  all  of  John's 
ardor  for  knowledge.  He  was  also  animated  with  a 

no 


Religious  Questioning 

spirit  of  free  inquiry,  to  such  an  extent  that  he  did 
not  acknowledge  any  subject  as  too  sacred  for  the 
fullest  investigation  in  the  light  of  reason;  in  brief, 
he  possessed  the  true  critical  spirit  with  perfect 
frankness  in  self-expression.  John  and  Roberts  were 
much  together  in  their  church  relations  as  well  as 
in  their  musical  diversions;  they  also  took  long 
walks  together  discussing  the  subjects  uppermost 
in  their  minds ;  and  as  their  philosophico-religious  in- 
terests broadened  they  grew  into  a  close  intellectual 
relationship  which  was  stimulating  and  helpful  to 
both. 

John  had  another  friend  in  Middletown  who  aided 
him  much  in  his  studies  and  his  reading  and  for 
whom  he  always  cherished  a  kind  remembrance  — 
Joseph  Whitcomb  Ellis.  Mr.  Ellis  was  an  alumnus 
of  Wesleyan  University,  and  at  this  time  he  was 
a  teacher  of  mathematics  in  the  Middletown  High 
School.  He  was  a  good  mathematician,  and  was 
well  read  in  science.  He  had  a  choice  library  which 
contained  the  mathematical  works  of  Lagrange, 
Laplace,  Goss,  and  Peirce ;  as  well  as  representative 
works  in  science  and  philosophy.  Mr.  Ellis  was  a 
liberal-minded  Swedenborgian  in  his  belief,  and  to 
encourage  John  in  his  pursuit  of  knowledge  he  gave 
him  the  free  use  of  his  library  —  a  kindness  which 
was  greatly  appreciated. 

It  was  in  many  ways  unfortunate  that  at  this 
period  of  his  religious  questioning  John  should 
have  had  dogmatic  Christianity  preached  to  him  in 

in 


John  Fiske 

its  most  repulsive  form.  His  pastor  at  the  North 
Church,  Middle  town,  the  Reverend  Jeremiah 
Taylor,  D.D.,  was  in  no  sense  a  learned  man,  either 
in  history  or  in  Biblical  criticism,  much  less  in 
science.  His  sermons,  therefore,  partook  of  vigorous 
assertions  of  the  divinity  of  dogma,  combined  with 
ignorant  condemnations  of  the  recent  advance- 
ments in  science  and  in  Biblical  criticism.  These 
advancements  in  knowledge  he  alleged  were  only 
fresh  devices  of  Satan  to  discredit  the  religion  of 
Christ  divinely  revealed  in  the  Bible. 

John's  fairness  of  mind  is  shown  at  this  point. 
He  was  not  ready  to  give  up  his  Christian  belief 
without  investigation ;  and  so  we  find  him  reading, 
in  addition  to  a  very  broad  course  in  science  and 
history,  such  works  in  sound  orthodoxy  as  Hugh 
Miller's  "Testimony  of  the  Rocks,"  Walker's  "God 
Revealed  in  the  Creation  and  in  Christ,"  Walker's 
"Philosophy  of  the  Plan  of  Salvation,"  Wayland's 
" Intellectual  Philosophy,"  Isaac  Taylor's  "The 
World  of  Mind,"  Edwards  on  "The  Will,"  Hickok's 
"Rational  Psychology,"  Nelson's  "Cause  and 
Cure  of  Infidelity,"  Hopkins's  and  Alexander's 
"Evidences  of  Christianity,"  Alford's  "Prole- 
gomena to  the  Gospels,"  Campbell  and  Douglas 
on  "Miracles,"  Watson's  "Reply  to  Gibbon  and 
Paine,"  and  Bushnell's  "Nature  and  the  Super- 
natural"—  the  last  then  regarded  as  a  master- 
piece in  the  defence  of  Christian  theology. 

In  his  investigations  John's  mind  appears  to  have 

112 


Influence  of  Buckle 

been  centred  on  the  Christian  dogmas  as  a  whole 
—  on  the  theologic  claim  that  they  presented  a 
completely  rounded  philosophical  system  of  all 
existences;  and  it  further  appears  that  he  early  be- 
came impressed  with  the  conviction  that  the  de- 
fenders of  these  dogmas  almost  wholly  ignored 
science,  and  rested  their  defences  mainly  on  as- 
sumptions rather  than  on  positive  verifications.  In 
regard  to  Bushnell's  work  he  writes,  a  little  later, 
"The  rhetorical  work  of  Bushnell,  with  its  total 
ignorance  of  physical  science,  did  more  to  shake  my 
faith  than  anything  else." 

It  was  while  thus  investigating  for  ultimate 
truth  —  in  May,  1859  —  that  Roberts  brought  him 
the  first  volume  of  Buckle's  "History  of  Civiliza- 
tion in  England.'*  Few  books  published  during  the 
last  century  made  such  a  stirring  of  philosophic  and 
religious  thought  as  this.  Its  laudation  of  science 
over  metaphysics,  its  proclamation  of  the  superi- 
ority of  external  or  natural  forces  over  internal  or 
subjective  forces  in  the  development  of  civilization, 
its  bold  grappling  with  many  accepted  philosophic 
conclusions  and  religious  beliefs,  and  its  great  dis- 
play of  learning,  —  all  presented  in  a  vigorous,  at- 
tractive style,  —  fairly  took  by  storm  the  unsettled 
condition  of  philosophic  thought  of  sixty  years  ago, 
and  set  serious-minded  thinkers  to  a  careful  reen- 
visagement  of  the  philosophic  verities  that  underlie 
human  well-being.  The  book  made  a  profound  im- 
pression on  the  public  mind,  and  the  discussion  it 


John  Fiske 

called  forth  was  an  interesting  prelude  to  the  far 
deeper  philosophic  discussion  which  came,  a  little 
later,  with  the  publication  of  Darwin's  "Origin  of 
Species,"  with  its  philosophic  complement,  Her- 
bert Spencer's  theory  of  Evolution. 

Fiske  fairly  devoured  Buckle.  The  book  stirred 
his  thought  to  the  uttermost.  His  own  reading 
gave  him  great  equipoise  in  weighing  Buckle's 
arguments.  In  Buckle's  main  contentions  he  found 
much  to  dissent  from  as  well  as  much  to  agree  with. 
He  finished  the  volume  with  a  greatly  clarified 
mind  and  with  the  conviction  that  it  was  "a  great 
and  noble  book,  written  by  a  great  and  noble 


marl." 


Later  thought  has  somewhat  lessened  the  value 
of  Buckle's  contribution  to  the  great  discussion  of 
which  it  was  the  forerunner.  It  had  an  immediate 
effect  upon  Fiske's  mind,  however,  in  two  directions. 
In  the  first  place,  it  led  him  to  focus  his  thought 
upon  the  important  part  played  by  nature  in  the 
development  of  civilized  man,  and  upon  the  need 
of  a  philosophy  which  should  present  the  objective 
world  of  phenomena  as  revealed  by  science  and  the 
subjective  world  of  human  consciousness  as  revealed 
by  civilization  in  harmony  with  some  universal 
principle  which  could  absorb  both  in  unity  or  pur- 
pose. In  the  second  place,  it  was  the  culminating 
influence  which  completely  freed  his  mind  from 
bondage  to  dogmatic  theology.  Two  years  later  we 
are  to  see  him  writing  an  article  on  Buckle  which 

114 


Abandons  Dogmatic  Christianity 

stands  to-day  among  the  best  judgments  upon  this 
eminent  thinker  that  have  been  published. 

It  was  no  easy  matter  for  John  to  break  away 
from  the  religious  faith  in  which  he  had  been  bred, 
and  which  he  had  himself  embraced  in  full  credence 
of  its  Divine  origin  and  character.  Granting  its  as- 
sumptions, dogmatic  theology  gave  the  Christian 
believer  something  veritable  to  tie  to.  Denial  of 
its  Divine  origin  and  character  left  the  mind  ap- 
parently without  a  positive  hitching-post  in  the 
vast  swirl  of  cosmic  phenomena.  That  John  fully 
realized  the  significance  of  the  change,  and  that 
the  breaking-away  was  attended  with  distress  of 
mind,  the  letters  bear  witness.  In  this  hour  of  trial 
he  could  not  appeal  to  his  mother  or  to  his  grand- 
mother. They  could  not  understand  him.  He  could 
turn  for  sympathy  only  to  his  friend  Roberts,  who 
was  passing  through  a  similar  experience ;  and  both 
found  comfort  and  encouragement  in  their  broad- 
minded  friend  Dudley. 

By  midsummer  Fiske's  abandonment  of  dog- 
matic Christianity  was  complete,  and  the  following 
remark  in  a  letter  to  his  mother  in  July  is  indicative 
of  what  was  passing  in  his  mind :  — 

"I  must  not  try  to  write  about  the  Trinity  in  a 
letter:  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  about  it  when  you 
come.  If  the  system  is  true,  orthodoxy,  Unitarian- 
ism,  and  Swedenborgianism  are  alike  false." 

His  mother  came  to  see  him  shortly  after,  and  he 
opened  his  mind  to  her  in  regard  to  his  change  of 


John  Fiske 

religious  views  freely  and  frankly.  He  pointed  out 
how  unphilosophical  and  how  unreasonable  the 
orthodox  scheme  of  theology  appeared  to  him  as 
a  basis  for  religious  faith;  that  the  existence  of  a 
personal,  triune  Godhead  as  the  first  Great  Cause 
and  as  a  Divine  Ruler  was  an  anthropomorphic  as- 
sumption; that  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  by  which  a 
universe  was  created  by  fiat  out  of  nothing  was  un- 
thinkable; that  the  creation  of  man  —  also  by  fiat 
—  as  a  perfect  being  was  opposed  to  all  the  teach- 
ings of  science;  that  man's  temptation,  fall,  and  re- 
demption through  Christ  had  no  valid  historic  veri- 
fication; while  the  existence  of  a  veritable  Heaven 
and  Hell,  where  the  Divine  Ruler  eternally  re- 
warded or  punished  mankind  for  its  belief  or  non- 
belief  in  Him,  had  no  justifiable  basis  in  reason  or 
experience.  He  assured  her  that  with  no  honesty  or 
sincerity  of  heart  could  he  any  longer  believe  in  a 
religion  based  on  such  foundations  —  a  religion 
which  made  such  a  monster  of  God  and  held  such 
a  frightful  doom  over  the  greater  portion  of  the 
human  race,  a  doom  which  included  some  of  the 
noblest  characters  that  have  ever  lived. 

His  mother  could  neither  say  nor  do  anything  to 
oppose  him.  She  found  comfort,  however,  in  his 
assurance  that  he  regarded  atheism  as  more  unrea- 
sonable and  unthinkable  than  dogmatic  theology, 
and  in  the  fact  that  his  ideals  of  moral  conduct 
were  heightened,  while  his  desire  to  prepare  him- 
self for  service  through  a  thorough  course  of  col- 

116 


Abandons  Dogmatic  Christianity 

lege  training  showed  no  abatement  whatever.  Real- 
izing, therefore,  that  if  he  was  in  error,  he  could  be 
convinced  of  the  fact  only  through  his  own  experi- 
ence, she  let  him  go  forward;  but,  grievously  for 
him,  without  her  sympathy  or  understanding. 

Resuming  John's  personal  experiences  in  Mid- 
dletown,  we  find  that  during  the  latter  part  of  1859 
the  change  in  his  religious  views  began  to  have  effect 
upon  his  religious  conduct.  He  no  longer  believed 
in  the  orthodox  theology  or  the  religious  faith  based 
on  that  theology.  Out  of  filial  regard  for  his  grand- 
mother he  had  retained  his  connection  with  the 
North  Congregational  Church,  where  he  had  to 
listen  to  such  presentations  of  religious  truth  by 
Dr.  Taylor  as  this:  — 

"  But  at  this  point  of  the  discussion  a  scene  bursts 
upon  my  vision:  it  is  from  the  depths  of  eternity. 
A  multitude  of  holy  angels  enter  singing  'Holy, 
Holy,  Lord  God  Almighty'  —  but  the  scene  changes. 
Envy  enters  into  the  breast  of  the  mightiest  of  that 
angel  host.  He  asserts  his  dominion  against  the 
Father.  Consternation  reigns  in  Heaven ;  but  Christ 
sent  by  Jehovah  hurls  in  holy  wrath  and  Godlike 
vengeance  that  rebel  host  to  hell,"  etc. 

Such  crude  expositions  of  "Divine  truth"  out- 
raged all  John's  religious  nature,  and  we  can  easily 
understand  his  indignant  outburst  in  giving  his 
mother  an  account  of  the  sermon:  "  I  wished  some 
one  had  pitched  him  out  of  the  pulpit  in  the  same 
way." 

117 


John  Fiske 

Dr.  Taylor's  sermons  reflected  the  religious  un- 
rest of  the  time  and  abounded  with  ignorant  preju- 
dice against  what  was  termed  "  scientific  infidelity," 
as  well  as  with  bitter  invective  against  the  rising 
school  of  "scientific  infidels "  who  would  discredit 
God's  inspired  messages  to  man. 

John  could  not  endure  such  preaching.  He  began 
to  absent  himself  from  the  communion  service,  and 
finally  he  withdrew  from  church  attendance  alto- 
gether. He  felt  that  with  his  disbelief  in  the  Chris- 
tian dogmas  it  was  pure  hypocrisy  to  appear  as  their 
supporter.  He  was  supported  by  his  friend  Roberts. 
They  acted  together,  and  it  soon  became  current 
throughout  the  town  that  young  Fiske  and  Roberts, 
the  two  brightest  young  minds  and  the  two  most 
exemplary  young  men  in  the  North  Church,  had 
turned  infidels. 

In  a  conservative,  orthodox  community  like 
Middletown  of  fifty  years  ago,  to  be  called  an  in- 
fidel was  one  of  the  severest  terms  of  social  reproach. 
There  was  charity  for  the  moral  delinquent,  and 
even  for  the  burglar,  for  they  might  be  reclaimed 
by  subscribing  to  the  dogmatic  orthodox  creed; 
but  for  the  infidel,  the  disbeliever  in  the  creed  itself, 
one  who  boldly  denied  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
and  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  he  had  no  title  what- 
ever to  social  recognition;  he  was  to  be  regarded,  in 
fact,  as  the  foe  of  all  social  and  religious  order;  and 
all  the  more  dangerous  if  well  educated  and  of  un- 
exceptionable moral  character. 

118 


Social  Ostracism 

John's  pastor,  Dr.  Taylor,  was  greatly  exercised 
at  the  outbreak  of  such  a  virulent  form  of  heresy 
under  his  own  preaching.  He  felt  it  not  only  a 
scandal  to  the  orthodox  Christian  faith,  but  also  an 
imputation  upon  his  own  faithfulness  in  presenting 
the  dogmatic  foundations  of  that  faith.  He  must 
bestir  himself.  He  called  upon  Mrs.  Lewis,  John's 
grandmother,  to  get  more  light  upon  the  cause  of 
John's  ''backsliding."  This  true  Christian  woman, 
firm  in  her  belief  that  moral  conduct  is  the  real  test 
of  religious  character,  stoutly  maintained  that  John 
could  not  be  an  infidel.  "Why,"  said  she,  "he  never 
did  a  bad  thing  in  his  life;  and  then,  he  is  such  a 
faithful  student."  "Yes,"  said  Dr.  Taylor,  "that 
makes  him  all  the  worse.  He  does  not  believe  in 
the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  nor  in  the  Divinity  of 
Christ;  and  he  has  given  up  the  church."  Still  she 
maintained  he  could  not  be  an  infidel;  and  in  the 
innocence  of  her  heart  she  took  Dr.  Taylor  into 
John's  library  to  see  the  fine  collection  of  books  he 
had  got  together,  all  of  which  she  knew  he  had  read. 

Alas,  to  the  heresy-hunter  the  exhibit  was  too 
conclusive !  There  side  by  side  with  books  of  sound 
orthodoxy  were  many  ancient  classics,  and  the 
works  of  Humboldt,  Voltaire,  Lewes,  Fichte, 
Schlegel,  Buckle,  Cuvier,  Laplace,  Milne-Edwards, 
De  Quincey,  Theodore  Parker,  Strauss,  Comte, 
Grote,  Gibbon,  and  John  Stuart  Mill.  Dr.  Taylor 
had  no  praise  to  bestow  upon  such  a  collection  of 
books  in  the  hands  of  his  young  parishioner;  and  in 

119 


John  Fiske 

response  to  the  inquiry  as  to  what  he  thought  of 
them,  he  could  only  shake  his  head. 

Shortly  after,  Dr.  Taylor  had  an  interview  with 
John  himself.  John  frankly  stated  his  views  in  re- 
gard to  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  and  in  regard  to 
creation  and  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  with  the  reasons 
therefor.  He  also  stated  that  to  his  mind  the  dog- 
matic presentation  of  God  was  belittling  and  vulgar, 
when  compared  with  the  conception  of  a  Divine 
Creator  and  Sustainer  which  reason,  informed  by 
science,  must  postulate  as  the  Ultimate  Source  of 
all  things.  Dr.  Taylor  was  not  equipped  for  parish- 
ional  service  against  such  views.  He  could  only 
condemn  them  as  rank  infidelity.  John  then  said: 
"You  see  where  I  stand.  Why  not  expel  me  from 
the  church?  "  Dr.  Taylor  replied :  "  That  we  cannot 
do  unless  you  commit  some  gross  act  of  immoral- 
ity." "That,"  said  John,  "  I  pray  God  I  may  never 
do."  Dr.  Taylor  then  asked:  "How  do  you  explain 
your  conversion?"  John  replied:  "You  will  find 
that  accounted  for  in  Esquirol's  'Des  Maladies 
Mentales.'" 

Finding  that  John  was  not  to  be  brought  back  to 
the  church  by  any  means  at  his  command,  Dr. 
Taylor  resorted  to  the  course  usually  pursued  in 
such  cases  by  clergymen  with  narrow  minds.  He 
began  to  decry  John  in  the  most  unjust  manner. 
There  was  hardly  any  epithet  too  opprobrious  to 
apply  to  him.  He  was  an  atheist,  an  infidel,  a 
blasphemer,  a  hypocrite,  an  immoral  person,  and 

1 20 


A  Religious  Storm-Centre 

finally  he  was  a  Unitarian.1  As  a  result,  this 
modest,  scholarly  youth  found  himself  a  religious 
storm-centre,  as  it  were,  in  the  orthodox  com- 
munity of  Middletown,  which  swept  reason,  jus- 
tice, and  even  common  courtesy  entirely  out  of 
consideration.  Worst  of  all,  it  brought  great  dis- 
tress of -mind  to  his  grandmother.  At  the  church 
gatherings  she  was  subjected  to  expressions  of  sym- 
pathy, made  personally  poignant  by  being  accom- 
panied by  reflections  upon  the  base  conduct  of 
John  in  turning  against  all  the  precepts  of  his 
Christian  training.  With  his  whole  life  before  her 
as  an  open  book,  wherein  on  every  page  was  written 
his  dutiful  consideration  for  others  as  well  as  his 
faithfulness  to  his  studies,  she  could  not  understand 
how  it  was  possible  for  him  to  become  such  a  moral 
reprobate  as  Dr.  Taylor  had  pronounced  him  to 
be. 

In  her  sore  perplexity  she  went  to  John  and  asked 
him  if  it  was  true  that  he  did  not  believe  in  the 
Bible  and  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ.  He  told  her 
that  in  the  way  in  which  the  Church  and  Dr.  Taylor 
presented  the  Bible  and  Christ  he  did  not  believe, 
but  that  in  a  far  higher  and  nobler  interpretation  of 

1  I  have  never  been  able  fully  to  understand  just  why  it  was  that 
in  orthodox  communities  of  fifty  years  ago  the  name  " Unitarian" 
had  such  an  opprobrious  signification.  I  recall  that  about  this  period 
I  was  visiting,  in  Western  New  York,  the  family  of  a  Presbyterian 
deacon.  The  deacon's  wife,  a  most  estimable  woman,  told  me,  as  a 
Bostonian,  that  during  her  girlhood  she  lived  in  Boston;  and  then, 
with  much  seriousness,  she  added:  "  I  then  attended  Dr.  Channing's 
church.  I  have  since  deeply  repented;  but  I  don't  think  it  ever  did 
me  any  harm." 

121 


John  Fiske 

them  he  did  believe.  And  then,  as  patiently  and 
as  simply  as  possible,  he  tried  to  explain  to  her 
his  conviction  that  the  Bible,  although  containing 
much  of  error  and  superstition,  was  still  the  great- 
est of  books ;  that  the  real  Jesus  of  history,  although 
perverted  to  men's  minds  by  the  Christ  of  dogma, 
was  still  the  noblest  character  that  ever  lived; 
while  over  all  was  a  Divine  Creator  and  Ruler,  of 
whose  wisdom,  goodness,  and  power  the  human 
mind  can  form  no  adequate  conception. 

Accustomed  to  regard  the  positive,  dogmatic  as- 
sumptions which  formed  the  basis  of  her  religious 
faith  as  divinely  inspired  messages  to  man,  the  dear 
old  lady  could  hardly  grasp  the  implications  or  the 
meaning  of  this  purer,  more  abstract  faith;  but 
she  found  comfort  in  John's  assurance  that  his  belief 
in  a  Divine  Creator,  "  Who  doeth  all  things  well/' 
and  in  upright  conduct  as  the  imperative  condition 
for  fulness  of  life,  was  stronger  than  ever. 

Another  incident  in  John's  Middletown  experi- 
ence should  be  given,  as  it  shows  that  at  this  early 
stage  he  was  getting  his  mental  acquisitions  into 
order  for  effective  use  either  in  argument  or  for 
lucid  exposition. 

There  was  living  in  or  near  Middletown  a  retired 
orthodox  clergyman,  the  Reverend  Jonathan  Eben- 
ezar  Barnes,  D.D.  Dr.  Barnes  was  a  contributor 
to  religious  magazines,  and  had  published  one  or 
more  articles  in  the  "New  Englander,"  then  a  dis- 
tinctly representative  organ  of  dogmatic  theology, 

122 


Controversy  with  Dr.  Barnes 

especially  in  its  philosophic  bearings  or  implications. 
Dr.  Barnes  had  much  local  reputation  as  a  scholar, 
and  occasionally  prepared  students  for  college.  His 
orthodoxy  was  sound.  He  knew  John  as  a  youth  of 
good  family  and  of  studious  habits.  He  had  heard 
of  his  heretical  opinions  and  of  his  withdrawal  from 
the  North  Church.  Out  of  his  Christian  feeling,  he 
wrote  John  a  friendly  letter,  in  which,  as  an  older 
scholar  and  a  student  of  philosophy,  he  offered 
by  correspondence  to  guide  his  steps  through  the 
"specious"  mazes  of  the  " Positive  Philosophy " 
then  current,  to  the  goal  he  felt  sure  he  would  ulti- 
mately reach,  "Christ  and  Him  crucified,"  as  the 
ultimate  truth  of  all  philosophy. 

John  was  somewhat  piqued  at  the  tone  of  this 
letter,  notwithstanding  the  evident  good  intention 
of  the  writer.  Its  quiet  assumption  that  all  knowl- 
edge, all  philosophy  outside  of  Christian  theology 
was  foolishness;  and  that  he,  in  his  eagerness  for 
knowledge,  owing  to  his  extreme  youth,  was  greatly 
in  need  of  a  friendly  Christian  adviser  seemed 
slightly  too  presumptuous.  Then,  too,  it  would 
appear  that  John  welcomed  the  receipt  of  this  let- 
ter as  a  fitting  opportunity  to  defend  his  heretical 
opinions.  Accordingly,  in  answering  Dr.  Barnes, 
he  not  only  stated  his  reasons  for  giving  up  the 
orthodox  Christian  faith,  he  also  challenged  Dr. 
Barnes  to  the  defence  of  that  faith.  The  letter  is 
too  long  for  insertion  here.  It  was  a  remarkable 
production  for  a  youth  who  had  but  just  turned  his 

123 


John  Fiske 

eighteenth  year.   Its  points  may  be  summarized  as 
follows:  — 

First.  His  faith  was  not  shaken  by  .the  "  specious  " 
philosophy  of  the  "  Positivists  " ;  he  was  convinced 
of  the  insufficiency  of  the  "evidences"  of  Chris- 
tianity long  before  he  knew  what  " Positivism" 
was. 

Second.  He  considers  the  "internal  evidences" 
of  Christianity  as  presented  by  its  supporters,  in- 
cluding the  originality  of  its  doctrines;  the  unique 
character  of  Jesus  and  its  ethics.  These  points  he 
analyzes  with  great  clearness  and  impartiality,  and 
he  finds  no  satisfaction  in  them. 

Third.  He  next  considers  the ' '  external  evidences, ' ' 
the  miracles,  the  prophecies,  the  historic  record  in 
the  different  books  of  the  Bible ;  the  argument  from 
existing  institutions  and  from  the  rapid  spread  of 
Christianity.  He  applies  to  the  evidences  adduced 
on  these  points  the  canons  of  logic  and  historic 
criticism  and  finds  that  they  do  not  stand  the 
test. 

Fourth.  He  interrogates  metaphysics,  but  does 
not  find  much  to  rest  upon  in  "  Kant's  negations  or 
Fichte's  beautiful  dreams,"  or  anything  of  the  kind 
he  touched.  The  metaphysicians  appear  to  have 
neglected  or  ignored  science,  and  to  have  established 
a  cosmogony  of  their  own  in  place  of  the  well-es- 
tablished truths  of  science. 

Fifth.  He  interrogates  science.  Here  he  finds 
rest;  for  in  the  verifiable  phenomena  of  the  universe 
he  finds  a  revelation  of  its  Divine  Creator,  written 
in  hieroglyphics  —  the  sacred  language  which  sci- 
ence is  daily  translating  into  the  dialects  of  man- 
kind.. 

124 


Controversy  with  Dr.  Barnes 

The  letter  closed  with  this  quotation  from  the 
early  philosopher  Thales:  — 

"  Tldvra  7T\rjprj  Oeov" 
All  things  are  full  of  God. 

Dr.  Barnes  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  the  letter 
and  expressed  himself  as  pleased  at  the  evidences 
it  gave  of  John's  "  industry."  He  promised  a  full 
reply  later.  That  reply  never  came.1 

From  contemporary  evidence  and  from  the  fact 
that  John's  mind  was  too  well  balanced  to  accept 
any  negative  philosophy,  it  appears  that  at  this 
time  the  ultimate  problem  of  philosophy  as  the 
quest  of  reason,  had  shaped  itself  in  his  mind  sub- 
stantially as  follows:  — 

I.  Granting  the  existence  of  the  world  of  subjec- 
tive phenomena  as  revealed  in  individual  con- 
sciousness and  as  objectified  in  the  various 
elements  and  phases  of  man's  civilization ; 

1  During  this  period  —  that  is,  the  year  1859  and  the  first  quarter 
of  1860  —  of  active  searching  for  a  new  base  for  philosophic  thinking 
we  have  John's  record  of  reading  the  following  works  in  addition  to 
the  works  named  on  page  106:  Grote's  History  of  Greece,  the  last  six 
volumes;  Arnold's  History  of  Rome,  and  also  his  Later  Roman  Com- 
monwealth;  Merivale's  History  of  the  Romans,  Gibbon's  History 
of  Rome,  Guyot's  Earth  and  Man,  Coleridge's  Religious  Musings, 
Bayne's  Essays,  Upham's  Mental  Philosophy,  Ferrier's  Institutes  of 
Metaphysic,  Schlegel's  Philosophy  of  History,  also  his  Philosophy  of 
Life;  Finlay's  Greece  under  the  Romans,  Hallam's  Middle  Ages, 
Thompson's  Outlines  of  the  Laws  of  Thought,  Fichte's  Nature  of  the 
Scholar,  and  The  Destination  of  Man;  Hume's  History  of  England, 
De  Quincey's  Philosophical  Writers,  several  volumes  of  sermons  and 
addresses  by  Theodore  Parker,  Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship, 
and  Past  and  Present;  Lewes's  History  of  Philosophy,  Strauss's  Life  of 
Jesus,  Paine's  Age  of  Reason,  Max  Mullet's  Survey  of  Languages, 

125 


John  Fiske 

II.  Granting  the  existence  of  the  universe  of  ob- 
jective phenomena  as  verified  to  human  con- 
sciousness or  mind  through  experience; 

III.  Granting  that  the  human  mind  has  never  been 
able  to  penetrate  with  any  verifiable  experi- 
ence the  causal  mystery  that  enshrouds  the 
world  of  subjective,  and  the  universe  of  ob- 
jective, phenomena,  and  their  interrelations; 

IV.  Granting  that  the  creation  or  emanation  of 
these  two  orders  of  phenomena  out  of  nothing 
is  an  unthinkable  proposition  to  the  reasoning 
mind; 

V.  What,  then,  as  the  very  basis  of  philosophic 
thinking,  must  the  rational  mind  postulate  as 
the  Ultimate  First  Cause  back  of  all  phe- 
nomena; and  what  must  be  its  method  of  man- 
ifestation or  revelation  to  the  human  mind? 

To  the  solution  of  this  problem  John's  intellect- 
ual powers  were  now  fully  roused,  and  he  took  up 
its  solution  as  a  quest  for  a  higher  and  purer  phil- 
osophic religious  faith  than  he  had  known.  This 
quest  he  took  up  at  this  early  period  with  as  sincere 
and  lofty  a  devotion  as  ever  animated  knight  of  the 
Holy  Grail;  and  it  was  pursued,  in  addition  to  his 
collegiate  and  legal  studies  and  his  subsequent  liter- 
ary work,  without  any  intermission  for  the  ensuing 
fifteen  years,  forming,  as  it  were,  a  background  to 

Vie  de  Voltaire,  par  Condorcet ;  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy,  Whate- 
ley's  Elements  of  Logic,  Mills's  System  of  Logic,  Wallon's  His- 
toire  de  Vesclavage  Ancienne,  Rousseau's  Confessions,  Comte's 
Philosophy  of  Mathematics,  Newman's  History  of  the  Hebrew  Mon- 
archy, De  Wette's  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,  Mansel's Limits 
of  Religious  Thought,  Mackay's  Progress  of  the  Intellect. 

126 


Social  Ostracism 

his  intellectual  life  during  this  period.  The  ground 
he  covered  in  this  quest  was  immense,  and  his 
method  of  investigation,  as  we  shall  see,  was  re- 
markable for  its  fair-mindedness  as  well  as  its 
breadth;  and  it  was  an  investigation  which  brought 
him  to  some  ultimate  philosophical  conclusions 
which  he  embodied  in  his  "Outlines  of  Cosmic 
Philosophy,"  published  in  1874  —  one  °f  tne  most 
important  philosophical  works  of  the  last  century. 

Meantime,  while  all  this  deep  study  was  going 
forward  and  all  this  high  thinking  was  taking  shape 
in  John's  mind,  his  life  in  Middletown  was  most  un- 
happy. Socially  he  was  practically  ostracized  from 
homes  where  he  had  formerly  been  cordially  wel- 
comed. On  the  street  he  was  shunned  by  his  ac- 
quaintances, and  was  pointed  at  as  the  "  Infidel  of 
the  North  Church/'  while  in  his  own  home  at  his 
grandmother's,  where  all  his  life  he  had  received 
affection  and  encouragement  in  his  studies,  he  was 
not  at  all  understood  and  consequently  was  with- 
out sympathy  in  his  high  purpose.  His  letters  bear 
witness  to  his  great  mental  perturbation  and  to  the 
"dull  and  sunless  days"  through  which  he  passed; 
and  in  the  midst  of  it  all  he  plaintively  appealed  to 
his  mother  to  let  him  get  out  of  Middletown,  and 
be  freed  from  the  atmosphere  of  ignorance  and  reli- 
gious intolerance  which  had  such  a  depressing  influ- 
ence upon  his  mind. 

His  mother  granted  his  request,  and  on  the  i8th 
of  May,  1860,  he  left  Middletown  to  prepare  for  his 

127 


John  Fiske 

collegiate  life  at  Cambridge  under  more  congenial 
surroundings.  He  left  with  a  saddened  heart;  for 
he  could  not  forget  that  back  of  the  persecutions  of 
the  past  few  months  all  the  tender  recollections  of 
his  boyhood  and  youth  were  indissolubly  linked 
with  the  dear  old  town. 

Just  forty  years  after,  Middletown  celebrated  the 
two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  her  civic 
existence.  She  chose  for  her  orator  on  this  memo- 
rable occasion  the  most  eminent  of  American  histo- 
rians and  one  of  the  profoundest  thinkers  of  the 
time,  proud  in  the  consciousness  that  during  the 
period  of  his  boyhood  and  his  youth  he  too  had 
trod  her  pavements:  he  too  had  breathed  her  air.1 

1  Longfellow's  poem  "Nuremberg"  contains  his  beautiful  tribute 
to  Albrecht  Diirer,  as  "  the  Evangelist  of  Art."  In  this  tribute  occurs 
the  following  line:  — 

"  That  he  once  has  trod  its  pavement,  that  he  once  has  breathed  its  air." 

In  borrowing  the  sentiment  of  this  line,  I  have  made  some  slight 
verbal  changes  in  it,  to  fit  the  time  conditions  of  the  narrative  as 
well  as  change  of  person. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BOSTON  AND   CAMBRIDGE 
i860 

YOUNG  Fiske  arrived  in  Boston  Friday  afternoon, 
May  1 8,  1860,  and  immediately  went  out  to  the 
home  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Bradford  in  the  suburban  town 
of  Quincy,  by  whom  it  had  been  arranged  he  should 
be  definitely  prepared  for  the  Harvard  examina- 
tions to  be  held  the  last  of  August. 

Fiske's  first  interview  with  Mr.  Bradford  re- 
vealed the  fact  that  the  latter  entirely  misunder- 
stood what  was  desired.  He  supposed  that  Fiske 
was  to  be  prepared  for  the  freshman  entrance  at 
Harvard.  When  he  found  that  a  preparation  for 
sophomore  —  and  possibly  junior  —  entrance  was 
desired,  he  frankly  said  he  was  not  qualified  to  give 
such  a  preparation;  and  he  advised  Fiske  to  seek  a 
tutor  acquainted  with  the  requirements  of  the  soph- 
omore and  junior  examinations. 

And  thus,  far  from  home  and  among  strangers, 
young  Fiske  found  himself  at  the  outset  of  his  new 
life  thrown  upon  his  own  resources  to  meet  a  rather 
embarrassing  situation. 

The  eminence  of  Mr.  Stoughton  at  the  New  York 
Bar  had  given  him  a  wide  acquaintance  with  the 
leading  attorneys  and  jurists  of  the  country,  and  the 

129 


John  Fiske 

charming  personality  of  Mrs.  Stoughton  had  added 
to  this  professional  acquaintance  social  relations 
of  the  highest  character.  In  Boston,  Judge  Benja- 
min R.  Curtis,  formerly  Justice  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  and  greatly  honored  for  his  dissent- 
ing opinion  in  the  famous  Dred  Scott  case,  one  of 
the  most  important  cases  ever  brought  before  the 
Supreme  Court,  was  the  warm  personal  friend  of 
both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stoughton  —  in  fact,  the  two 
families  were  socially  intimate.  Since  his  retire- 
ment from  the  Supreme  Bench,  Judge  Curtis  had 
resumed  active  practice,  and  was  at  this  time  the 
most  distinguished  member  of  the  Boston  Bar.  In 
his  practice  he  had  associated  with  himself  his 
brother,  George  Ticknor  Curtis. 

Fiske  in  his  perplexity  bethought  himself  to  ap- 
ply to  Judge  Curtis  for  counsel.  Accordingly,  the 
next  morning  he  found  his  way  to  Judge  Curtis's 
office.  He  was  received  by  George  Ticknor  Curtis, 
whom  he  describes  as  "a  very  stiff  man,  but  quite 
good-hearted,"  who  told  him  that  the  Judge  was 
out  of  town  for  the  day  and  advised  him  to  pack  up 
his  things  in  Quincy,  and  to  see  the  Judge  in  the 
evening.  In  the  evening  he  called  on  Judge  Curtis 
at  his  home,  32  Hancock  Street,  Boston,  and  what 
followed  is  best  told  in  Fiske' s  own  words  in  his 
first  letter  to  his  mother  written  the  following 
Monday :  — 

"I  found  the  Judge's  house  easily.  Delightful 
man  —  received  me  with  the  kindest  of  welcomes, 

130 


Consults  Judge  Curtis 

and  urged  me  to  stay  at  his  house.  I  declined  at 
first,  but  as  he  urged  me  warmly  I  stayed.  He  in- 
troduced me  to  his  nephew  Greenough,  a  freshman, 
and  to  his  daughters  —  the  eldest,  Miss  Bessie,  is 
a  lovely  girl.  I  felt  at  once  perfectly  at  home  with 
the  family.  Sunday  morning  I  went  to  church  with 
them  at  Kings  Chapel  —  a  Unitarian  church  re- 
taining a  part  of  the  Episcopal  service.  I  heard  a 
Unitarian  minister  but  no  one  could  tell  the  dif- 
ference. I  supposed  he  was  an  Episcopalian  until 
Miss  Minnie  (who  is  Miss  Curtis  number  two)  in- 
formed me.  After  church  Miss  Minnie  and  I  took 
a  walk  to  see  the  common  and  the  mill-dam.  In 
the  afternoon  I  went  to  church  with  Miss  Minnie. 
After  church  the  Judge  invited  me  to  take  a  walk 
with  him  —  we  went  to  Long  Wharf  and  to  Faneuil 
Hall.  The  evening  I  spent  talking  about  philology 
with  Miss  Bessie;  she  knows  something  of  Latin, 
Italian,  French,  and  German,  and  she  delights  in 
such  studies. 

"This  morning  the  Judge  very  kindly  went  to 
Cambridge  with  me,  and  leaving  me  with  Green- 
ough to  look  at  rooms,  he  called  on  President  Felton 
to  find  a  tutor  for  me.  Meanwhile  I  examined  the 
rooms  in  the  house  where  Greenough  was,  and  I  en- 
gaged a  study  room  for  the  summer  at  somewhere 
about  twenty  dollars.  The  room  is  one  of  the  pleas- 
antest  in  Cambridge  and  in  full  sight  of  the  college. 
There  is  no  table  connected  with  it,  but  board  can 
be  had  for  from  $2.50  to  $4.00  per  week.  The 
Judge  said  on  returning  I  could  do  no  better,  that 
is  why  I  took  the  room.  The  Judge  found  a  tutor, 
a  resident  graduate,  named  Bates,  highly  recom- 
mended by  Felton.  His  terms  are  enormous  —  two 


John  Fiske 

hours  a  day  at  $1.00  per  hour;  that  will  come  to 
$172.00  by  Sept.  ist.  It  will  be  more  than  my  tui- 
tion in  college  for  the  whole  two  years.  I  made  no 
engagement  with  Bates  but  said  I  would  call  on 
Friday,  at  12  o'clock.  I  did  not  like  to  make  such  a 
stupendous  bargain  without  consulting  you. 

I  returned  here  to  the  house  of  this  most  en- 
chanting of  men.  I  don't  know  when  I  was  ever  so 
fascinated  by  any  one.  Indeed,  harmony  and  love 
seem  to  reign  through  the  whole  family.  Never  be- 
fore was  I  treated  with  such  kind  attention;  and 
to-morrow,  I  shall  leave  for  Cambridge  in  love  with 
all  the  family,  from  the  Judge,  to  his  representa- 
tive of  four  years,  who  spent  Sunday  morning  play- 
ing marbles  with  me  on  the  carpet/' 

Fiske  began  his  Cambridge  life  on  Wednesday, 
May  23,  1860,  in  a  house  in  Holmes  Place  kept  by 
"the  ancient"  Royal  Morse.  The  house  was  next 
door  to  the  house  which  was  the  birthplace  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes.  Both  houses  long  since  gave  way 
to  the  more  imposing  buildings  of  the  Harvard  Law 
School.  The  letters  give  full  particulars  of  his  get- 
ting settled  for  a  summer  of  efficient  study. 

Mrs.  Stoughton  readily  assented  to  all  John's 
arrangements  and  also  to  the  engagement  of  Bates 
as  tutor,  and  so  on  Monday,  May  28,  1860,  he  be- 
gan his  definite  preparatory  studies.  On  the  advice 
of  both  Judge  Curtis  and  his  tutor,  he  gave  up  the 
idea  of  trying  for  a  junior  entrance  and  settled  down 
for  the  sophomore  examination.  His  preparatory 

132 


Visits  George  Ticknor 

reading  and  studies  were  not  at  all  exacting  for  him. 
They  comprised :  — 

Reading:  Peirce's  "Analytic  Geometry/1 

Smyth's  "Differential  Calculus/' 
Thompson's  "  Inorganic  Chemistry/' 
Reviewing :  Latin  and  Greek  Grammar  and  Com- 
position. 

Latin  and  Greek  prose  and  poetry. 
Geometry,  algebra,  and  arithmetic. 

Early  in  June  he  received  a  visit  from  his  friend 
Roberts,  who  was  then  balancing  in  his  mind  the 
choice  of  a  profession  —  teaching  or  the  law.  They 
took  counsel  with  Judge  Curtis  on  this  point.  The 
Judge  after  "drawing  Roberts  out,"  strongly  ad- 
vised him  to  take  the  law 1  and  recommended  that 
he  should  also  consult  George  Ticknor,  the  eminent 
Spanish  scholar,  who  took  great  pleasure  in  encour- 
aging young  men  to  lives  of  professional  usefulness. 
The  Judge  gave  Fiske  and  Roberts  a  cordial  letter 
of  introduction  to  Mr.  Ticknor.  This  was  an  in- 
troduction in  Boston  at  that  time  of  the  highest 
social  character.  Fiske's  account  of  what  followed 
is  of  much  interest :  — 

"Went  up  to  Mr.  Ticknor's  study.  Most  splen- 
did room  I  was  ever  in.  Mr.  Ticknor  was  most 
gracious  —  he  advised  George  to  be  a  lawyer.  Then 
he  talked  with  me  —  said  I  had  better  not  get  ac- 
quainted with  the  students  —  'fast  set  of  fellows'; 
more,  he  gave  me  full  permission,  'since  I  was  an 

1  Two  years  after  Roberts  entered  the  office  of  Judge  Curtis. 

133 


John  Fiske 

earnest  scholar,'  to  come  to  his  library  whenever  I 
choose  and  take  away  any  book  whatever  which 
I  wanted  to  read.  Was  n't  that  a  great  favor?" 

The  young  men  must  have  made  a  very  favor- 
able impression  upon  Mr.  Ticknor,  who  was  one 
of  the  most  precise  and  unimpressionable  of  men. 

Fiske's  letters  to  his  mother  and  to  Roberts  give 
full  particulars  of  his  activities  during  this  prepar- 
atory period.  He  was  delighted  with  his  tutor's 
method  of  instruction,  and  he  gave  himself  unre- 
servedly to  it.  In  addition  he  read  widely  and  with 
exceeding  thoughtfulness  upon  the  philosophic  prob- 
lems that  were  working  in  his  mind.  We  have  to 
note  that  at  an  age  when  most  young  men  would 
have  found  themselves  pretty  heavily  taxed  to  pre- 
pare through  the  summer  months  for  a  sophomore 
entrance  at  Harvard,  he  was  taking  his  preparatory 
work  with  the  greatest  ease  and  giving  much  the 
greater  part  of  his  time  to  philosophical  studies. 

In  these  studies  his  friend  Roberts  went  with  him 
hand  in  hand,  so  that  we  have  in  their  correspond- 
ence a  very  high  order  of  self-imposed  thinking 
common  to  both  young  men.  The  few  extracts 
from  this  correspondence  which  are  to  follow  will 
show  that,  while  indulging  in  the  freest  thought 
in  religious  and  philosophic  matters,  they  were  as 
insistent  upon  upright  conduct  in  all  matters  per- 
taining to  social  life,  as  are  those  who  maintain 
that  right  living  can  be  the  product  only  of  certain 
forms  of  religious  belief. 

134 


Settled  in  Cambridge 

Fiske's  early  Cambridge  letters  to  his  mother  tell 
of  his  delight  in  getting  the  choice  books  from  his 
Middletown  library  into  more  congenial  surround- 
ings. He  has  weeded  out  the  less  desirable  books 
and  has  made  some  additions,  so  that  his  library 
now  numbers  two  hundred  and  sixty-six  volumes, 
every  one  of  which  is  identified  with  a  bit  of  per- 
sonal experience  in  his  pursuit  of  knowledge.  Con- 
spicuous were  a  choice  selection  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics,  and  a  complete  edition  of  the  works 
of  Voltaire.  Beside  these  were  the  works  of  Gibbon, 
Grote,  Humboldt,  Lyell,  Darwin,  Buckle,  Comte, 
Mill,  Spencer,  Mackay,  Lewes,  Lagrange,  Donald- 
son, Emerson,  Theodore  Parker,  and  several  vol- 
umes of  Dickens. 

He  also  tells  his  mother  about  the  adjustment  of 
his  furniture  and  pictures.  Over  his  mantelpiece 
he  has  a  framed  portrait  of  Humboldt  and  he  has 
turned  his  "  study  table  halfway  around  so  as  to 
face  the  portrait."  He  has  also  a  portrait  of  Voltaire 
in  the  room.  He  has  seen  a  full-length  statuette  of 
Goethe,  which  "looks  very  majestic,  in  other  words 
very  much  like  Goethe,"  and  he  wishes  his  mother 
would  get  it  for  his  room  —  which  she  did. 

Fiske's  Saturdays  were  usually  spent  in  "mous- 
ing among  the  book-shops  in  Boston,"  not  only  to 
keep  in  touch  with  the  new  books  along  his  chosen 
lines  of  study,  but  also  to  see  and  handle  any  new 
or  fine  edition  of  a  favorite  author.  He  had  a  great 
fondness  for  fine  editions  of  good  books,  —  not 

135 


John  Fiske 

editions-de-luxe,  but  serviceable  editions  with  good 
print  and  margins  and  substantial  bindings.  To 
him  a  good  book  was  far  more  than  a  material 
object,  far  more  than  a  product  of  mechanical 
processes.  It  was  the  latter  into  which  had  been 
breathed,  as  it  were,  a  human  soul.  His  tender  re- 
gard for  good  books  grew  out  of  his  reverent  feeling 
towards  them  as  distinct  embodiments  of  man's 
spiritual  nature. 

In  a  letter  to  his  mother  of  June  17,  1860,  he 
tells  of  a  visit  to  the  book-store  of  Little,  Brown 
&  Company1  and  in  speaking  of  the  interesting 
books  he  saw  there,  he  says  :  — 

"  I  saw  the  works  of  all  the  English  Positivists  — 
they  comprise  some  of  the  first  men  of  the  cen- 
tury: — 

f  Logic,  2  vols. 
John  Stuart  Mill  —  his  works     •<  Political  Economy,  2  vols. 

(_  Philosophical  Writings,  2  vols. 
f  Seaside  Studies. 

Exposition  of  Comte. 
George  Henry  Lewes  —    "       M    X  History  of  Philosophy. 

Life  of  Goethe. 

I.  Physiology  of  Common  Life. 

George  Grote  —  History  of  Greece,  12  vols. 

Henry  T.  Buckle  —  Civilization  in  England.  , 

f  Outlines  of  Astronomy. 

Sir  John  Herschel  —          "       "     -J  Natural  Philosophy. 

(.  Essays. 

Principles  of  Psychology. 
Social  Statics. 
Senses  and  the  Intellect. 


. 

Herbert  Spencer-  "       "     | 

( 


Rain  - 

£>am  —  ~~  •»->        •  ji     ITTMI 

(  Emotions  and  the  Will. 

1  Little,  Brown  &  Company's  book-store  and  publishing  house 
was  at  1  12  Washington  Street,  and  the  firm  was  famous  throughout 
the  country  for  choice  editions  of  standard  English  works. 

136 


Interest  in  Positivism 


Robert  W.  Mackay  -  his  works   {  l^688  ot.  *h.e  .I"*ellfct' 

(  Progress  of  Christianity. 

Charles  Darwin  —  The  Origin  of  Species. 

Sir  Charles  Lyell  -         "       "      \  Wortks  «?.  9eol°^  ™e 

(  greatest  living  geologist. 

"In  Germany,  to  omit  lesser  names,  the  Posi- 
tivists  enumerate  among  their  number  that  of 
Humboldt  and  also  Ehrenberg  —  probably  the  first 
living  zoologist.  In  France  there  is  Comte  himself,1 
Robin  the  first  anatomist,  Littre  and  Berard  and 
Pouchet,  three  of  the  greatest  physiologists,  and 
Verdeil,  perhaps  the  greatest  chemist.  So  it  seems  at 
present  all  departments  of  science  are  under  the 
control  of  Positivism.  What  does  it  mean?  No  pre- 
vious instance  in  the  history  of  thought  can  be 
found  of  so  many  great  thinkers  uniting  under  the 
same  standard.  I  did  n't  know  but  you  might  like 
to  know  who  the  great  men  are  to  whose  school  I 
belong.  " 

This  extract  is  of  interest,  not  only  as  showing  the 
wide  range  of  Fiske's  thought  at  this  time,  but  also 
as  reflecting  somewhat  the  confusion  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  scientifico-philosophic  thought  of  the 
period.  The  philosophic  speculations  of  Auguste 
Comte  were,  during  the  middle  period  of  the  century, 
much  in  evidence,  and  were  presented  with  some 
original  and  striking  suggestions  regarding  the  pro- 
gressive development  of  human  knowledge.  Fur- 
thermore, it  being  claimed  that  these  speculations 
were  based  on  positive  science,  and  as  scientific  in- 
vestigations in  various  directions  were  opening  lines 

1  Comte  was  not  then  living,  —  he  died  in  1857. 
137 


John  Fiske 

of  thought  in  direct  opposition  to  established  re- 
ligious and  philosophic  beliefs,  there  was  much  con- 
fusion of  thought  in  the  general  situation,  with  a 
very  prevalent  disposition  to  regard  the  advance- 
ments in  science  as  in  harmony,  if  not  identified, 
with  the  claims  of  the  Positive  Philosophy  of  Comte. 
In  fact,  the  Comtean  philosophy  was  credited  with 
too  much  on  the  one  hand,  while  science  was  deb- 
ited with  too  much  on  the  other  hand.  It  was  a 
false  kind  of  double-entry.  It  appears  that  at  this 
time  Fiske  was  more  or  less  in  sympathy  with  the 
Comtean  philosophy.  He  had  studied  the  Positive 
Philosophy  of  Comte  with  great  interest  and  much 
care.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  given  much, 
if  any,  attention  to  the  later  sociological  vagaries  of 
Comte.  In  the  years  to  come,  we  are  to  see  him 
battling  vigorously  to  defend  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion —  which  was  charged  with  Comtean  character- 
istics —  against  any  affiliations  with  the  Comtean 
philosophy. 

In  the  latter  part  of  June,  on  one  of  the  Saturday 
excursions  to  Boston  referred  to,  Fiske  found  in  the 
"Old  Corner  Book-Store "  of  Ticknor  &  Fields,  the 
original  prospectus  of  Herbert  Spencer's  system  of 
philosophy,  the  publication  of  which,  in  quarterly 
numbers,  to  be  sold  by  subscription,  was  an- 
nounced. In  view  of  what  is  to  follow  in  the 
development  of  Fiske's  own  mind  and  in  his  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  Spencer,  the  following 
extracts  from  the  letters  are  of  special  interest. 

138 


Enthusiasm  over  Spencer 

Writing  Roberts  under  date  of  June  24,  1860,  he 
says:  — 

"Oh,  George,  my  soul  is  on  fire!  (to  use  a  favorite 
expression  of  Horace),  for  Herbert  Spencer  is  about 
to  execute  a  gigantic  series  of  Positive  books  on 
which  he  has  been  at  work  for  years.  I  will  try  to 
get  you  a  printed  notice  of  them  before  sending  this. 
He  cannot  finish  them  unless  he  gets  subscribers 
enough  to  sustain  him.  My  name  goes  down  to- 
morrow— subscription  only  $2.50  per  year.  There 
will  be  about  ten  volumes  comprising  Organic  Na- 
ture. There  is  Biology,  Psychology,  Sociology,  and 
Morality.  Language  comes  in,  too,  and  the  'Re- 
ligion of  Science'  will  also  be  treated.  George,  if  I 
were  you,  I  would  put  down  my  name,  for  every  one 
counts.  Mill's  name  is  down,  so  is  Herschel's  besides 
Buckle,  Lewes,  Grote,  Mackay,  Newman,  Froude, 
Darwin,  Lyell,  Hooker,  Carpenter,  Bain,  De  Mor- 
gan, Lieveking,  Morell,  and  many  others  whom  I 
do  not  think  of." 

Writing  the  same  day  to  his  mother  he  expresses 
his  enthusiasm  over  Spencer's  undertaking  thus:  — 

"  I  will  try  to  get  you  a  notice  of  Herbert  Spen- 
cer's gigantic  series  of  works — a  perfect  library  of 
Positivism.  You  will  see  all  about  them  in  the 
notice.  I  hope  Mr.  Stoughton  will  subscribe.  I 
consider  it  my  duty  to  mankind  as  a  Positivist  to 
subscribe;  and  if  I  had  $2,000,000  I  would  lay 
$1,000,000  at  Mr.  Spencer's  feet  to  help  him  exe- 
cute this  great  work." 

Little  did  he  dream  in  these  moments  of  exulta- 
tion over  this  announcement  of  Spencer's  great 

139 


John  Fiske 

work  that  in  the  years  to  come  he  was  to  be  brought 
into  close  personal  relations  with  him  in  the  work- 
ing-out of  the  latter' s  philosophic  system;  and  also 
to  become  the  chief  interpreter  of  its  spiritual  im- 
plications. 

The  letters,  and  particularly  those  to  Roberts, 
show  not  only  great  mental  activity  outside  of  his 
preparatory  studies;  they  also  show  the  wide  range 
of  his  interests  under  his  new  surroundings.  In 
the  letter  of  June  24,  which  contains  the  above  ref- 
erence to  Spencer's  undertaking,  there  is  the  follow- 
ing passage:  — 

"  I  am  slamming  into  German  and  find  '  Kosmos' 
much  easier  than  Lessing.  If  you  ever  get  'Kos- 
mos' get  the  German  edition.  It  is  splendid,  but 
the  translation  murders  it.  I  am  reading  Boccaccio 
and  I  find  I  have  stumbled  on  one  of  the  hardest 
authors  next  to  Guicciardini.  Machiavelli  is  one  of 
the  easiest  Italian  authors,  he  is  so  clear  and  precise. 
In  Spanish  I  am  reading  Navarrete's  'Veda7  Cer- 
vantes prefixed  to  his  edition  of  'Don  Quixote/ 
The  second  volume  of  Lewes' s  *  Physiology  of  Com- 
mon Life '  is  out  and  he  goes  into  the  cerebral  part 
like  the  devil." 

Fiske  is  studying  Sanskrit  and  dropping  into 
Confucius,  and  in  a  letter  of  July  8  he  says:  — 

"  If  you  are  going  to  be  a  lawyer,  you  will  need 
to  learn  Sanskrit  so  as  to  read  the  'Institutes  of 
Menu.'  Nothing  like  going  to  the  fountain  head. 
...  I  am  reading  Confucius,  and  it  is  the  most 
infernal  piece  of  nonsense  I  have  got  hold  of  — 

140 


Wide  Range  of  Study 

neither  head  nor  tail  to  it.  Shape  it  hath  none  dis- 
tinguishable in  member,  joint,  or  limb.  Though  I 
have  read  in  it  for  two  evenings  with  praiseworthy 
diligence,  I  confess  my  ignorance  of  what  it  is  about. 
The  Chinese  may  understand  it;  I  don't,  for  my 
brains  are  not  celestial  as  theirs  are.*' 

And  then  follows  this  fine  tribute  to  Humboldt's 
"Kosmos":  — 

"Ye  Gods:  what  a  book  is  'Kosmos/  It  is  the 
Epic  of  the  Universe.  It  would  pay  to  learn  Ger- 
man if  that  were  the  only  book  in  the  language. 
Every  now  and  then  Humboldt  quotes  some  beau- 
tiful ode  or  sonnet  of  his  brother  William;  e.g.:  — 

1  Wie  Gras  der  Nacht  myriaden  Wei  ten  keimen.' l 

"What  a  line  that  is!  The  entire  style  of  the 
work  is  grand  and  majestic.  It  is  the  poem  of  Posi- 
tivism; though  Peter  Bayne  says  that  Positivism 
chills  the  poetry  in  man's  nature." 

Fiske  visited  the  Harvard  Library,  and  was  cor- 
dially received  by  the  genial  old  librarian,  Dr. 
Sibley,  whose  chief  delight  was  rummaging  among 
old  books  and  papers  for  the  chance  of  finding  a 
volume  or  sermon  or  address  not  hitherto  collected, 
and  Fiske  was  given  free  access  to  the  rare  books  in 
the  library.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  he  at  once 
turned  to  the  rare  philological  works.  In  an  alcove 
given  to  philological  and  Asiatic  books  he  found 
much  to  engage  his  attention.  He  tells  Roberts  that 
there  were  "books  in  Sanskrit,  Persian,  Prakrit, 

1  Like  grass  of  the  night  myriads  of  worlds  come  into  being. 

141 


John  Fiske 

Arabic,  Turkish,  and  all  sorts. "   He  itemizes  from 
memory  the  following:  — 

"  There  was  W.  v.  Humboldt's  'Ueber  die  Kawi- 
sprache  auf  der  Insel  Jawa,'  in  3  vols.  huge  quarto :  I 
am  going  to  read  it.  They  say  it  is  the  best  philolog- 
ico-ethnological  work  out.  There  was  Diez : '  Gram- 
matik  der  Romanischen  Sprachen,'  3  vols.:  I  am 
bound  to  read  that;  it  is  the  best  grammar  out,  of 
French,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  Norman  Provencal, 
Italian,  and  Wallachian.  There  was  Schlegel's 
'  Etudes  sur  les  langues  Asiatiques' ;  Lassen's '  Insti- 
tutiones  Linguae  Pracriticse '  and  '  Indische  Alter- 
thumskunde';  Ritter's  '  Erdkunde,' about  12  vols.; 
' Mahabharata/  'Ramayana,'  and  'Rig  Veda'  in 
Sanskrit,  bound  in  red  calf.  Also  Klaproth's  'Asia 
Polyglotta,'  and  so  many  other  books  that  I  was 
driven  nearly  wild  by  the  sight  of  them.  I  tell  you 
your  uncle  goes  into  these  books  like  the  very  devil. 
No  use  in  being  scared.  I  spend  2  j-  hours  per  day 
on  German  now,  and  it  is  coming  by  degrees.  I  shall 
read  it  readily  by  winter.  Then  I  can  take  out  Deiz, 
and  old  W.  von  Humboldt,  and  Grimm,  and  cram  a 
deuced  lot  of  philology  into  my  cocoa-nut  shell." 

Among  the  subjects  uppermost  at  this  time  in  the 
minds  of  Roberts  and  Fiske  was  the  early  history 
of  Christianity,  a  subject  on  which  both  had  read 
widely  and  thoughtfully.  They  felt  that  no  true 
history  of  this  important  period  in  human  civiliza- 
tion had  yet  been  written.  But  light  was  breaking. 
German  scholarship  and  historic  research  had  so 
clearly  punctured  many  of  the  theologic  dogmas  of 
the  Christian  religion  that  many  minds  had  begun 

142 


Early  Christianity 

to  think  rationally  on  the  historic  development  of 
Christianity,  where  they  had  hitherto  accepted 
what  they  had  been  commanded  or  induced  to  be- 
lieve. Nevertheless,  there  was  very  little  tolerance 
for  rationalistic  views  on  this  subject,  and  we  shall 
see  later  that  among  the  unfinished  projects  of 
Fiske 's  life  —  the  one  that  was  nearest  his  heart  — 
was  the  writing  of  a  popular  history  of  the  first  five 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  Bearing  on  this  sub- 
ject, if  not  the  first  suggestion  of  it,  to  the  mind  of 
Fiske  is  the  following  passage  in  one  of  the  letters 
of  Roberts,  apropos  of  his  reading  Mackay's  "Rise 
and  Progress  of  Chris tianity":  — 

"  I  wish  there  was  a  good  edition  of  the  50  apocry- 
phal Gospels,  the  36  apocryphal  Acts,  and  the  12 
apocalypses,  together  with  a  good  critical  history 
of  the  early  Church.  It  would  disabuse  the  public 
of  their  prejudices  amazingly.  I  recommend  the 
work  for  your  consideration.'1 

Fiske  spent  a  Sunday  with  the  family  of  Judge 
Curtis,  and  the  Judge  and  Fiske  got  into  a  theologic 
discussion  regarding  which  Fiske  writes:  — 

"  In  a  respectful  way  I  used  the  Judge  up  —  cor- 
nered him  everywhere.  The  Judge  seemed  to  enjoy 
it,  and  appeared  puzzled  at  me.  Finally  he  gave 
up,  beaten,  and  ordered  a  bottle  of  ale  and  some 
crackers." 

He  had  a  conversation  with  the  Judge  about 
Agassiz,  concerning  which  he  reports  to  Roberts 
thus:  — 


John  Fiske 

"The  Judge  can't  say  that  Agassiz  is  a  Christian 
—  only  a  theist  —  that's  all.  I '11  tell  you  a  story 
Agassiz  told  the  Judge  about  Arago.  It  seems  that 
Agassiz,  Arago,  and  several  other  scientific  men 
were  dining  with  the  Murchisons.  Says  Lady  Mur- 
chison,  *  Now,  M.  Arago,  what  can  be  the  reason  that 
in  France  all  your  men  of  science,  so  learned  as  they 
are,  invariably  reject  Christianity?'  'Madame,' 
said  Arago  rather  drily, '  they  never  give  any  atten- 
tion to  such  matters.'  Arago's  answer  strikes  me 
forcibly  as  showing  how  in  France  Christianity  is 
all  a  thing  of  the  past." 

The  last  sentence  should  be  interpreted  as  refer- 
ring to  the  opinion  of  Christianity  among  the  scien- 
tists of  France.  The  high  ideals  of  scholarship  held 
by  both  Fiske  and  Roberts  is  reflected  in  a  passage 
in  a  letter  of  Roberts  apropos  of  a  remark  by  a  per- 
son in  Middletown  who  knew  Fiske  but  slightly,  to 
the  effect  that  Fiske  was  somewhat  conceited,  and 
that  he  would  get  taken  down  tremendously  if  he 
entered  Harvard  above  freshman.  Roberts  says :  — 

"  I  do  not  think  you  or  any  earnest  scholar  con- 
ceited. I  would  like  to  know  if  we  both  do  not  de- 
plore our  ignorance  enough,  and  see  a  field  broad 
enough  to  cure  us  of  complacency  at  our  present 
attainment." 

Only  once  during  this  preparatory  period  was 
Fiske  interrupted  in  his  studies.  About  the  first  of 
August  the  hot  midsummer  weather  of  Cambridge 
began  to  tell  upon  his  physical  strength,  pushed  as 
it  had  been  in  the  support  of  his  varied  intellectual 

144 


Enters  Harvard 

activity,  and  he  was  forced  to  take  a  few  days'  rest 
at  Middle  town.  On  the  loth  of  August  he  re- 
turned to  Cambridge  and  resumed  his  studies; 
and  so  confident  was  he  of  creditably  passing  the 
entrance  examinations  that  he  engaged  his  rooms 
for  the  ensuing  year  and  set  about  getting  his 
things  in  order  for  an  undergraduate  three  years' 
life  at  Harvard. 

Thus,  with  his  mind  variedly  occupied,  the  sum- 
mer rapidly  passed,  and  on  Thursday,  the  3Oth  of 
August,  1860,  Fiske  presented  himself  for  exami- 
nation for  the  freshman  and  the  sophomore  en- 
trances at  Harvard. 

The  examinations  lasted  three  days.  They  con- 
sisted of:  — 

Written  exercises  in 

Latin  Grammar  and  Composition. 

Greek  Grammar  and  Composition. 

Geometry,  Algebra,  and  Arithmetic. 
Oral  Examinations  in 

Latin  Prose  and  Poetry. 

Greek  Prose  and  Poetry. 

Geography  and  History. 

The  absence  of  all  requirements  in  the  sciences 
and  in  modern  languages  is  noticeable. 

Fiske  passed  both  examinations  creditably  in  all 
subjects, — he  was  one  of  six  unconditioned, — 
and  at  the  close,  he  telegraphed  Roberts  as  follows: 
"  Sophomore  without  conditions.  Please  promul- 
gate." To  his  mother  he  gave  a  detailed  account 

145 


John  Fiske 

of  the  examinations;  and  then  he  went  down  to 
Swampscott  and  spent  Sunday  with  Judge  Curtis 
and  his  family,  by  whom  he  was  most  cordially  wel- 
comed, and  congratulated  on  the  auspicious  open- 
ing of  his  college  career. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HARVARD  COLLEGE 
I860-I863 

FROM  what  we  have  already  seen  it  appears  that 
young  Fiske  brought  to  Harvard  a  mind  well 
stocked  with  an  exceptional  amount  of  varied,  well- 
arranged  knowledge,  remarkable  powers  of  appli- 
cation and  acquisition,  together  with  high  ideals  of 
scholarship  and  of  personal  character  —  in  a  word, 
he  came  fairly  as  a  model  student.  To  trace  under- 
standingly  his  development  through  the  next  three 
years  it  is  essential  that  we  become  acquainted 
with  the  intellectual  and  social  life  that  prevailed 
at  Harvard  during  the  period  of  1860-1863.  This 
is  necessary  inasmuch  as  the  more  important  phases 
of  Fiske's  intellectual  development  took  definite 
shape  during  this  period,  and  in  directions  so  op- 
posed to  the  accepted  academic  thought,  and  owing 
to  influences  so  entirely  independent  of  the  college, 
as  to  relieve  us  from  measuring  the  student  by  the 
college,  even  if  we  are  not  led  to  some  unflattering 
measure  of  the  college  itself. 

The  freshman  and  sophomore  examinations 
through  which  Fiske  so  easily  passed  reveal  how 
completely  modern  science  and  modern  languages 
—  the  latter  the  necessary  tools  with  which  to 

147 


John  Fiske 

master  the  former  —  were  ignored  in  the  entrance 
examinations,  and  even  a  cursory  view  of  the  aca- 
demic course  as  a  whole  shows  that  at  this  time 
Harvard  College  as  an  institution  of  learning  was 
still  under  the  dominance  of  mediaeval  ideas  of 
"what  knowledge  is  of  the  most  worth";  and  that 
the  great  seething,  virile  thought  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  which  was  demanding  of  knowledge  veri- 
ties rather  than  speculation,  which  was  placing  new 
values  on  intellectual  culture,  values  based  on  sci- 
ence and  its  application  to  social  well-being,  had  as 
yet  no  properly  recognized  place  in  its  academic 
course  of  instruction. 

With  these  facts  before  us,  and  as  we  are  tracing 
the  intellectual  development  of  one  of  the  most  il- 
lustrious of  Harvard's  alumni,  it  is  well  worth  while 
to  take  a  brief  glance  at  the  academic  course  of 
study  and  also  at  the  faculty  —  the  governing  body 
of  the  college  —  "as  they  were  in  themselves"  at 
the  time  young  Fiske  was  seeking  knowledge  at 
their  hands.  We  shall  find  this  diversion  of  much 
assistance  in  tracing  our  alumnus  through  his  under- 
graduate experiences. 

There  were  two  Presidents  of  the  college  during 
the  period  —  Cornelius  Conway  Pel  ton  and  the  Rev- 
erend Thomas  Hill,  D.D.  For  thirty  years  previ- 
ous to  his  presidency,  President  Felton  had  been 
Professor  of  Greek  at  the  college.  He  had  written 
upon  Greek  literature,  but  he  was  not  distinguished 
for  scholarship.  His  administration  was  brief  — 

148 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

less  than  two  years.  President  Hill  was  a  Unitarian 
clergyman.  He  had  been  President  of  Antioch 
College.  He  excelled  as  a  mathematician.  He  was 
a  sincere,  devout  man;  and  in  the  great  discussion 
then  opening  between  Science  and  Religion,  he 
would  have  the  former  held  in  bondage  by  the  latter. 
He  was  not  a  man  of  impressive  personality,  nor 
was  he  noted  for  scholarship  or  executive  ability. 
He  was  a  very  worthy  man,  but  he  was  singularly 
out  of  place  as  President  of  Harvard  College. 
Neither  incumbent  left  any  marked  impress  upon 
the  college. 

The  Classical  Department,  which  comprised 
instruction  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  and 
literatures,  was  the  best  equipped  department  of 
the  college.  It  was  in  charge  of  three  Professors: 
the  Greek,  of  William  W.  Goodwin,  Ph.D.,  Eliot 
Professor  of  Greek  Literature,  and  Evangelinus  A. 
Sophocles,  A.M.,  University  Professor  of  Ancient, 
Byzantine,  and  Modern  Greek;  the  Latin,  in  charge 
of  George  M.  Lane,  Ph.D.,  University  Professor  of 
Latin.  For  the  Greek,  there  were  two  assistant  in- 
structors or  tutors,  and  for  the  Latin,  there  were 
four. 

While  the  study  of  these  two  languages  was  re- 
quired in  the  first  three  classes,  and  was  an  elective 
in  the  senior  class,  and  while  a  greater  teaching 
force  was  given  to  this  department  than  to  any 
other  in  the  college,  we  have  to  notice  the  absence 
of  any  adequate  provisions  for  making  students 

149 


John  Fiske 

acquainted  with  classic  history  or  literature  while 
studying  the  languages ;  and  classical  philology,  in 
the  sense  in  which  philology  is  now  understood,  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  at  all  considered.  One  of 
the  most  significant  points  of  contrast  between  the 
educational  ideals  of  the  Harvard  academic  course 
in  1860  and  that  which  obtains  at  present,  is  shown 
in  the  provisions  for  classical  instruction  at  the  two 
periods. 

Of  the  professors  and  instructors  in  this  depart- 
ment much  that  is  good  can  be  said.  Professor  Good- 
win was  a  young  man  who  had  studied  at  Gottingen 
under  the  eminent  classical  scholar  Hermann,  and 
he  brought  to  his  chair  at  Harvard  a  knowledge  of 
the  Greek  language  and  literature  quite  exceptional 
at  the  time,  as  well  as  an  enthusiastic  love  for  the 
products  of  the  Hellenic  mind.  The  glimpses  we 
get  of  him  during  the  period  under  review  are  highly 
creditable  to  his  scholarship  and  also  to  his  influence, 
which  was  of  an  inspiring  nature,  upon  the  students. 
He  appears  to  have  been  absorbed  principally  in 
his  own  line  of  work.  Technically  he  was  a  Greek 
grammarian,  and  his  influence  during  the  last  half- 
century  upon  the  instruction  in  Greek  at  Harvard 
and  throughout  the  country  has  been  great. 

The  most  distinct  personality  in  the  department 
—  if  not  in  the  whole  college  —  was  Professor 
Sophocles,  who,  by  reason  of  his  Greek  features, 
his  flowing  locks,  his  simple,  quaint  garb,  presented 
a  noticeable  appearance.  His  manners,  too,  were 

150 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

unique  —  a  combination  of  the  courteous  gentle- 
man, the  scholarly  recluse,  and  the  cynic,  which 
caused  him  as  an  instructor  to  appear  in  various 
aspects.  Many  are  the  incidents  related  of  his  se- 
verely brusque  and  unjust  treatment  of  students, 
partially  atoned  for  by  acts  of  courtesy,  which 
show  that  a  tenderness  of  heart  was  as  genuine  a 
part  of  his  nature  as  was  his  love  for  his  noble  lan- 
guage. And  he  did  love  his  Greek  tongue!  He 
seemed  to  know  every  Greek  word,  and  its  proper 
use,  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  classic  pe- 
riod, and  his  insights  into  the  great  masterpieces  of 
Greek  literature  were  the  valuable  parts  of  his  teach- 
ing. He  had  no  patience  with  indifferent  students, 
but  to  those  who  took  an  interest  in  the  Greek  lan- 
guage and  literature  he  was  a  great  help,  an  in- 
spiration. Often  he  was  unjust  in  his  judgments.1 

Professor  Lane  was  an  excellent  Latin  scholar 
and  he  had  a  fine  appreciation  of  Latin  literature. 

1  The  following  incidents  illustrate  somewhat  Professor  Sophocles's 
manner  of  dealing  with  his  students:  — 

A  backward  student  called  to  explain  his  remissness  and  to  assure 
the  Professor  that  he  did  love  his  Greek  study.  "  Then  name  two  of 
your  favorite  passages,"  said  the  Professor.  The  student  named  one 
in  the  Iliad  and  one  in  the  (Edipus.  Professor  Sophocles  then  handed 
him  the  books,  saying,  "  Find  those  passages  and  read  them  to  me." 
The  student,  in  his  reading,  revealed  serious  errors.  Said  the  Pro- 
fessor in  his  brusque  way:  "Young  man,  you  do  not  understand 
Greek !  You  have  no  love  for  that  noble  language !  You  murder  it ! 
Enough.  I  want  no  more  to  do  with  you." 

There  was  much  complaint  in  the  class  of  '63  that  the  Professor's 
marks  were  incorrect,  and  particularly  in  the  cases  of  three  students 
who  were  entitled  to  widely  different  marks.  On  complaint  being 
made,  Professor  Sophocles  replied:  "  I  can't  distinguish  between  you 
gentlemen.  You  must  take  your  chances  as  to  what  you  get." 


John  Fiske 

Although  somewhat  reserved  in  manner  he  was  at 
heart  of  a  kindly,  genial  disposition.  While  firm  in 
his  insistence  upon  the  importance  of  technical 
drill,  he  sought  to  throw  students  upon  their  own 
resources  in  mastering  the  grammatical  construc- 
tion of  the  Latin  language  and  also  in  interpreting 
the  masterpieces  of  Latin  literature.  He  was  a  clear 
and  inspiring  lecturer. 

The  department  was  fortunate  in  having  as  in- 
structor Ephraim  W.  Gurney,  sometime  tutor,  and 
later  assistant  professor  in  Latin.  In  the  teaching 
staff  of  the  college  no  one  exercised  a  more  stimu- 
lating, healthful  influence  upon  the  students  than 
did  Mr.  Gurney.  He  was  a  man  of  broad  culture, 
with  a  scholarly  love  for  knowledge  —  not  that  of 
the  pedantic  sort,  but  of  that  knowledge  which 
leadeth  unto  wisdom.  He  was  an  earnest  student  of 
the  educational,  and  also  the  scientific  and  philo- 
sophic, problems  of  the  time.  He  held  his  knowledge 
as  a  gift  for  distribution,  and  his  method  of  teach- 
ing was  through  lending  his  torch  to  every  one's 
candle. 

It  should  be  mentioned  that,  although  not  a  fea- 
ture of  the  Classical  Department,  instruction  in 
Hebrew  and  other  Oriental  languages  was  optional 
to  the  senior  class,  the  instruction  to  be  given  by 
George  R.  Noyes,  D.D.,  Professor  of  these  lan- 
guages in  the  Divinity  School.  There  does  not  ap- 
pear to  have  been  any  demand  for  this  instruction 
among  the  seniors.  We  shall  see  that  Fiske,  how- 

152 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

ever,  was  prompt  to  avail  himself  of  it  by  taking  up, 
as  extras,  Hebrew  and  Sanskrit,  in  his  sophomore 
year.1 

The  Department  of  Mathematics  was  presided 
over  by  Benjamin  Peirce,  LL.D.,  Perkins  Professor 
of  Astronomy  and  Mathematics.  There  were  three 
assistant  instructors.  Mathematics  was  a  required 
study  during  the  first  two  years  and  was  an  elective 
during  the  junior  and  senior  years. 

Professor  Peirce  was  one  of  the  leading  astron- 
omers and  mathematicians  of  his  time.  He  had  a 
deeply  reverent  mind  and  possessing  an  active, 
fertile  imagination  the  heavens  were  his  dwelling- 
place  no  less  than  the  surface  of  our  globe.  Having 
crystallized  his  thought  into  mathematical  formulae 
of  the  widest  generality,  he  explored  the  vast  realms 
of  space  and  brought  forth  fresh  evidences  of  the 
existence  throughout  the  sidereal  universe  of  im- 
mutable, ever-unfolding  law. 

Professor  Peirce  was  one  of  the  most  important 
personalities  in  the  intellectual  and  social  life  of 
the  Harvard  of  his  day.  His  strong  features  and 
his  flowing  locks  of  iron-gray  hair  gave  him  an  im- 
pressive appearance,  and  he  did  not  fail  to  attract 
attention  when  strolling  through  Harvard's  classic 
yard.  It  was  not  an  infrequent  sight  to  see  him 
and  Professor  Agassiz  strolling  through  the  yard 
together.  His  enthusiasm  in  his  own  line  of  work 

1  Fiske  read  the  Bible  in  Hebrew  with  Dr.  Noyes,  who  pronounced 
him  the  best  Hebrew  scholar  he  ever  had. 

153 


John  Fiske 

was  great,  and  his  ready  command  of  his  vast 
knowledge,  combined  with  rare  powers  of  exposi- 
tion, made  him  an  attractive  lecturer,  and  gave  to 
his  conversation  a  peculiar  charm.  At  times,  it 
must  be  confessed,  his  enthusiasm  in  his  sidereal 
excursions  led  him  to  soar  beyond  the  grasp  of  the 
undergraduate  mind.  Even  in  such  instances  his 
greatness  was  fully  admitted  by  his  hearers. 

Professor  Peirce  had  accepted  the  theory  of  Evo- 
lution as  the  Divine  order  of  creation,  and  in  re- 
ligious belief  he  was  a  theist  akin  to  Channing  and 
to  Emerson.  It  may  be  said  that  his  deep  reverence 
for  the  Divine  Power  which  he  saw  back  of  all  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe  was  so  sincere  that  no 
one  ventured  to  measure  him  with  a  doctrinal 
creed.  Of  him  it  was  truly  said :  — 

"For  him  the  Architect  of  all 
Unroofed  our  Planet's  star-lit  hall. 
Through  voids  unknown  to  worlds  unseen 
His  clearer  vision  rose  serene."  l 

The  Department  of  History,  one  of  the  most 
important  departments  of  the  college,  appears  to 
have  been  sadly  neglected.  Henry  W.  Torrey,  Pro- 
fessor of  Ancient  and  Modern  History,  with  one 
assistant,  was  in  charge  of  the  department.  The 
instruction  was  limited  to  the  freshman  and  senior 
classes.  Professor  Torrey  was  a  very  amiable  man, 
but  he  had  not  the  preparation  essential  for  the 
head  of  this  department  at  the  college.  It  appears 
1  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
154 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

that,  not  unlike  Mr.  Wegg,  he  dropped  into  history 
"in  a  friendly  sort  of  way."  The  character  and 
scope  of  the  instruction  shows  that  the  value  at- 
tached to  history  in  the  general  academic  course 
was  very  slight.  Better  historic  instruction  is  now 
given  in  the  public  high  schools. 

In  the  Department  of  Rhetoric  and  Oratory,  the 
college  tried  to  hide  a  really  fine  scholar  and  critic 
in  the  subordinate  position  of  a  literary  pedagogue. 
The  department  was  in  charge  of  Francis  J.  Child, 
Ph.D.,  Boylston  Prof essor  of  Rhetoric  and  Oratory. 
Professor  Child  was  an  authority  on  all  matters  re- 
lating to  early  European,  and  particularly  to  early 
English,  literature;  and  besides,  he  was  one  of  the 
best  critics  of  general  literature  of  the  day.  To 
Professor  Child,  with  one  assistant,  was  given  the 
task  of  seeing  that  in  all  the  classes  the  students' 
training  in  the  use  of  English  was  consistent  with  a 
college  course.  He  went  farther.  Beyond  the  formal 
exercises  in  grammar  and  rhetoric,  he  sought  to 
make  students  acquainted  with  the  resources  of 
their  native  language  as  a  vehicle  of  thought  ex- 
pression, thus  lifting  mere  pedagogic  instruction 
to  the  higher  plane  of  philologic  study.  Professor 
Child  was  a  most  genial  man.  He  read  his  certifi- 
cate of  professorship  as  an  unlimited  authorization 
to  lend  a  helping  hand  wherever  needed,  and  his  life, 
therefore,  was  a  constant  overflow  of  assistance  to 
students  in  many  directions.  In  religious  belief,  he 
was  broad-minded  and  without  creedal  limitation. 

155 


John  Fiske 

He  was  short  of  stature  and  familiarly  known 
by  the  students  as  "Stubby  "  Child,  a  sobriquet 
which  he  made  synonymous  with  rare  learning  so 
that  it  became  a  veritable  title  of  honor  in  the  un- 
dergraduate mind.  How  Professor  Child  would  have 
gloried  in  the  provisions  that  are  now  given  for  the 
study  of  his  noble  English  tongue  at  Harvard! 

The  Department  of  Modern  Languages  was  un- 
der the  direction  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  Smith 
Professor  of  the  French  and  Spanish  languages,  and 
Professor  of  Belles-Lettres.  He  was  assisted  by  two 
instructors  —  one  in  French  and  one  in  German. 
Professor  Lowell  gave  lectures  and  also  personal  in- 
struction in  Spanish  and  Italian.  The  slight  value 
that  was  then  put  upon  modern  languages  is  shown 
not  only  by  their  absence  from  the  entrance  ex- 
aminations, but  also  by  the  fact  that  in  all  the  col- 
lege classes  their  study  was  optional. 

But  slight  as  was  the  value  put  upon  modern  lan- 
guages and  literature  in  the  framing  of  the  college 
course  of  study,  Professor  Lowell  made  his  lec- 
tures one  of  the  most  valuable,  and  to  some  of  the 
students,  one  of  the  most  attractive,  features  of  the 
course.  He  was  at  the  maturity  of  his  rare  powers, 
and  his  lectures  partook  of  the  nature  of  informal 
talks.  He  made  them  occasions  for  blending  his 
ripe  scholarship,  his  keen,  illuminating  criticism, 
his  genial  wit,  and  his  profound  thought,  in  a  man- 
ner wholly  his  own:  in  truth,  he  happily  illustrated, 
in  his  own  case,  how  "language  curtsys  to  its  nat- 

156 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

ural  king."  People  familiar  with  Professor  Lowell's 
11  Letters"  and  "Essays"  —  particularly  his  essays 
on  Shakespeare,  Dante,  Lessing,  Don  Quixote, 
and  on  Modern  Languages  and  Literatures  —  can 
readily  imagine  what  intellectual  occasions  these 
lectures  must  have  been.  Their  fame  still  lingers 
among  the  finer  traditions  of  the  college. 

The  provisions  for  scientific  instruction  in  the 
academic  course  were  in  1860  very  meagre.  The 
fact  that  the  claims  of  science  were  entirely  ignored 
in  the  entrance  examinations  is  indicative  of  the 
low  estimate  that  was  put  upon  science  as  a  subject 
in  collegiate  education.  It  appears,  however,  that 
its  claims  had  some  recognition  in  the  academic 
course,  although  the  methods  of  instruction  were 
sadly  deficient.  There  were  provisions  for  in- 
struction in  what  was  designated  as  three  Depart- 
ments of  Science:  the  Department  of  Physics;  the 
Department  of  Chemistry  and  Mineralogy;  the 
Department  of  Natural  History,  Anatomy,  and 
Physiology. 

The  first  of  these  departments,  that  of  Physics, 
was  in  charge  of  Joseph  Lovering,  A.M.,  Hollis 
Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy. 
Instruction  was  given  only  to  the  junior  and  se- 
nior classes,  wholly  by  textbook  recitations  and  by 
illustrated  lectures;  there  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  any  laboratory  work  whatever.  Professor  Lov- 
ering was  painstaking  and  precise  in  all  his  work. 

157 


John  Fiske 

He  was  not  an  original  investigator,  but  a  facile  in- 
terpreter of  the  work  of  others.  He  was  a  clear,  but 
not  an  inspiring,  teacher.  At  a  time  when  the  fun- 
damental conceptions  of  physics  were  undergoing  a 
radical  change  it  does  not  appear  that  he  brought 
any  intimation  of  this  fact  to  the  knowledge  of  his 
students. 

The  second  of  these  departments  was  under  the 
direction  of  Josiah  P.  Cooke,  A.M.,  Erving  Pro- 
fessor of  Chemistry  and  Mineralogy.  This  depart- 
ment, as  a  practical  feature  in  the  academic  course, 
had  been  created  virtually  by  Professor  Cooke.  He 
was  graduated  in  1848,  when  no  instruction  in 
chemistry  worth  speaking  of  existed  at  the  college. 
He  had,  however,  much  enthusiasm  for  this  branch 
of  science.  He  saw  its  great  importance  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  industrial  arts,  and  he  prepared 
himself,  mainly  by  self-study,  to  give  instruction 
in  it.  In  1850  he  was  appointed  to  the  Erving 
Professorship  and  he  secured  the  placing  of  chem- 
istry as  a  required  study  in  the  sophomore  year  and 
as  an  elective  in  the  junior  year  —  the  instruction 
being  by  textbooks  and  lectures.  By  1860  he  had 
managed  to  get  together  a  small  equipment  of  ap- 
paratus for  laboratory  work.  The  study  was  still 
confined  to  the  sophomore  and  junior  classes  and  the 
method  of  instruction  continued  to  be  mainly  by 
textbook  recitations  and  lectures:  laboratory  work 
was  given  as  an  elective  in  the  junior  class. 

Professor  Cooke  was  an  earnest  teacher  and  was 

158 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

fertile  in  devices  for  utilizing  his  limited  facilities 
for  effective  illustrative  and  laboratory  work.  It 
does  not  appear  that  in  his  instruction  he  paid  any 
attention  to  the  "  Correlation  and  Conservation  of 
Forces,"  a  subject  which  in  1860  was  engaging  the 
thought  of  the  scientific  world,  and  the  acceptance 
of  which  has  been  productive  of  great  changes  in 
the  fundamental  conceptions  of  chemical  and  phys- 
ical phenomena. 

Professor  Cooke  was  a  deeply  religious  man,  and 
his  lectures  were  permeated  with  a  sincere  desire 
so  to  interpret  the  principles  of  chemical  and  phys- 
ical science  that  they  should  appear  as  but  con- 
firmations of  the  assertions  of  Christian  theology.1 

The  third  of  these  scientific  departments  —  that 
of  Natural  History,  Anatomy,  and  Physiology  — 
had  at  this  period  hardly  more  than  an  incidental 
relation  to  the  academic  course.  The  instruction 
was  mainly  by  lectures  given  to  the  three  upper 
classes.  In  the  junior  and  senior  classes  attendance 
was  optional.  Incidental  as  was  the  instruction 
in  this  department,  it  served  to  bring  some  of  the 

1  It  was  the  opinion  of  Fiske,  often  expressed  in  later  years  that 
"  Joby  Cooke  "  —  as  the  Professor  was  known  in  the  undergraduate 
life  —  mixed  too  much  theology  with  his  science  for  the  good  of 
either  his  science  or  his  theology. 

Here  it  is  well  to  note  that  in  1860  and  1861  we  catch  glimpses  of 
a  young  man  reserved  in  manner,  hovering,  as  it  were,  between  the 
departments  of  mathematics  and  chemistry,  positive  in  his  teach- 
ing and  a  member  of  the  faculty,  who  had  already  made  a  strong 
impression  at  the  college.  This  was  Charles  W.  Eliot,  who,  a  few 
years  later,  as  President  of  the  college,  was  to  reconstruct  it  from  its 
foundations  and  place  it  among  the  great  universities  of  the  world. 

159 


John  Fiske 

students  into  personal  relations  with  three  eminent 
men  of  science.  These  were  Asa  Gray,  M.D.,  Fisher 
Professor  of  Natural  History,  one  of  the  greatest  of 
living  botanists;  Louis  Agassiz,  LL.D.,  Lawrence 
Professor  of  Zoology  and  Geology,  one  of  the 
world's  great  zoologists  and  geologists;  and  Jeffreys 
Wyman,  M.D.,  Hervey  Professor  of  Anatomy,  of 
world-wide  reputation  as  an  anatomist. 

These  eminent  instructors  were  greatly  hampered 
in  the  presentation  of  their  respective  subjects  by 
the  absence  of  adequate  facilities  for  illustrative 
and  laboratory  work.  Two  of  them,  Professors 
Agassiz  and  Gray,  figured  prominently,  as  we  shall 
soon  see,  in  the  great  controversy  over  the  "Origin 
of  Species,"  a  subject  which  was  then  engaging  the 
thought  of  the  scientific  and  religious  world.  Pro- 
fessor Wyman,  although  not  so  conspicuous  in  the 
public  eye,  was  an  authority  in  his  special  subject 
of  anatomy,  which  he  had  studied  in  its  relations  to 
all  phases  of  organic  life.  His  personal  character 
was  of  the  highest,  and  it  had  a  fine,  pervasive,  en- 
nobling influence  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  col- 
lege. He  was  an  Evolutionist  in  his  philosophico- 
religious  belief,  but  he  was  not  disputatious  in  its 
advocacy.  His  life  was  well  summed  up  by  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes:  "He  suffered  long  and  was 
kind;  he  envied  not;  he  vaunted  not  himself;  he  was 
not  puffed  up;  he  sought  not  his  own;  was  not 
easily  provoked;  he  thought  no  evil,  and  rejoiced  jn 
the  truth." 

160 


The  Harvard  Faculty 

In  all  matters  relating  to  instruction  in  the  sci- 
ences, the  difference  between  what  obtained  at 
Harvard  in  1860,  and  what  obtains  now,  is  simply 
incalculable. 

The  Department  of  Philosophy  was  in  charge  of 
Francis  Bowen,  A.M.,  Alford  Professor  of  Religion 
and  Moral  Philosophy.  The  instruction  was  con- 
fined to  the  senior  class.  The  Department  of  Phil- 
osophy in  a  college  should  be  the  meeting-place 
where  the  instruction  in  the  other  departments  is 
brought  to  focus  around  the  ultimate  questions  of 
the  physical  cosmos,  the  human  soul,  and  the  In- 
finite Power  that  lies  back  of  both.  The  wise  di- 
rection of  such  a  department  requires  not  only  a 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  various  depart- 
ments of  human  knowledge,  but  also  the  possession 
of  the  philosophic  temper,  which  enables  its  pos- 
sessor to  look  with  equanimity  upon  all  phases 
of  human  thinking  as  adumbrating  to  some  extent 
the  truth  regarding  the  above  three  questions,  the 
ultimates  of  all  knowledge.  Professor  Bowen  was  a 
Unitarian  of  the  indeterminate  religious  belief  pre- 
vailing at  the  period.  He  held  firmly  to  the  tenets 
of  Christian  theology  save  in  regard  to  the  Trinity, 
a  dogma  he  seems  to  have  ignored;  and  he  sought 
to  interpret  the  later  developments  of  science  as 
but  confirmation  of  the  claims  of  dogmatic  theology. 
He  was  bitterly  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion in  any  of  its  forms,  and  he  found  something 

161 


John  Fiske 

atwist  in  the  arguments  of  all  its  advocates.  He 
was  not  an  educated  man  in  science;  yet  he  de- 
livered himself  on  scientific  questions  with  the  air 
of  one  who  thought  his  judgment  final,  and  that 
metaphysical  vociferation  would  prevail  over  scien- 
tific demonstration.  Holding  an  important  posi- 
tion at  a  great  epoch  in  philosophic  and  religious 
development,  he  appears  as  endeavoring  to  stifle, 
rather  than  as  striving  to  stimulate  and  direct,  the 
awakening  thought  of  the  period.  The  course  of 
study  in  this  department  presents  a  noticeable  as- 
semblage of  me taphysico- theological  husks.  In  the 
undergraduate  life  of  the  college,  Professor  Bowen 
was  known  by  the  expressive  sobriquet  of  "Fanny." 

Religious  instruction  was  given  a  place  in  the 
academic  course.  The  instruction  was  given  by 
Andrew  P.  Peabody,  D.D.,  Preacher  to  the  Univer- 
sity, and  Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals. 
It  was  confined  to  the  freshman  and  senior  classes, 
and  consisted  of  textbook  recitations  from  Whate- 
ley's"  Lessons  on  Christian  Morals  and  Evidences" 
and  Butler's  "  Analogy  and  Ethics."  Attendance 
at  daily  morning  prayers,  and  at  two  church  serv- 
ices on  Sunday,  was  compulsory  for  all  students. 

Dr.  Peabody  was  of  the  Unitarian  faith,  but  be- 
tween the  assumptions  of  dogmatic  theology  and 
the  affirmations  of  positive  science,  he  seems  to 
have  found  a  sort  of  religious  resting-place  which 
did  not  put  him  in  strong  antagonism  to  either  side 

162 


Orders  and  Regulations 

in  the  religious  controversy  then  raging,  while  it  en- 
abled him  to  draw  support  from  both.  This  reli- 
gious peace  he  sought  to  share  with  others.  His  was, 
indeed,  a  kindly  soul.  He  recommended  the  study 
of  the  works  of  broad-minded,  devout  thinkers ;  he 
preached  "the  efficacy  of  good  works"  as  of  greater 
value  in  life  than  creedal  beliefs;  and  he  gained  the 
affectionate  regard  of  the  students. 

'*  Before  passing  from  the  consideration  of  the 
academic  course,  we  should  take  a  brief  glance  at 
the  "Orders  and  Regulations"  of  the  faculty  espe- 
cially in  regard  to  attendance  at  religious  services  by 
the  students,  for  here  we  shall  see  the  strong  hold 
the  "  theological  bias"  had  upon  the  most "  liberal " 
college  in  New  England. 

We  have  already  seen  that  daily  attendance  at 
prayers,  and  that  attendance  at  two  church  serv- 
ices on  Sunday,  were  compulsory  for  all  students. 
We  have  now  to  note  that  non-compliance  with 
these  requirements  was  strictly  noted,  and  more 
heavily  penalized  than  were  absences  from,  or 
failures  in,  recitations  or  lectures.  For  instance:  a 
"  Private  "  —  that  is,  a  private  admonition  —  was 
given  to  a  student  for  his  unexcused  absence  from 
a  single  church  service,  while  he  could  "cut"  six 
recitations  or  lectures  before  being  called  to  account. 
Again  a  "Public"  —  that  is,  a  public  admonition 
—  was  given  to  a  student  for  two  half-day  absences 
from  church  services,  while  he  could  "cut"  twelve 

163 


John  Fiske 

recitations  or  lectures  before  being  subjected  to  such 
punishment.  And  again:  a  student  could  be  ''sus- 
pended, dismissed,  or  otherwise  punished  at  the 
discretion  of  the  faculty,"  for  being  absent  from 
three  church  services,  while  he  could  indulge  in 
eighteen  absences  from  recitations  or  lectures  be- 
fore receiving  the  severest  censure  of  the  college. 
Then,  too,  in  the  "scale  of  merit,"  attendance  at 
prayers  and  church  services  played  an  important 
part.  In  the  final  summing-up  of  the  term's  record 
there  were  deducted  from  the  total  favorable  marks 
eight  for  every  absence  from  a  lecture  or  recitation, 
while  for  "every  absence  from  daily  prayers"  two 
were  deducted,  and  for  "every  half -day  absence 
from  public  worship,"  thirty-two  were  deducted; 
and  in  case  a  student  received  a  "Private,"  thirty- 
two  were  additionally  deducted;  and  if  he  gained 
a  "Public,"  sixty-four  were  additionally  deducted. 

It  also  appears  that  a  strict  record  was  kept  of 
"all  tardinesses  at  prayers  and  Sunday  services," 
and  that  this  record  was  sent  to  the  faculty  at  the 
end  of  each  term,  and  that  for  every  instance  eight 
marks  were  deducted  from  the  rank  of  the  student 
so  reported. 

The  strictness  with  which  the  conforming  of  stu- 
dents to  the  religious  requirements  was  supervised 
is  indicated  by  the  following  provisions  in  the  "Or- 
ders and  Regulations  of  the  Faculty  for  1860":  — 

"Every  student  obtaining  leave  of  absence  for 
Sunday  must  bring  back  a  certificate  from  his  par- 


Orders  and  Regulations 

ent  or  guardian  or  some  other  accredited  person  of 
his  having  attended  church. " 

"  Absences  from  prayers  and  Sunday  services 
shall  be  reported  at  the  Regent's  office  by  the  re- 
spective monitors  every  Monday." 

"  Whenever,  in  the  course  of  any  one  term,  any 
student's  unexcused  absences  from  prayers  shall 
amount  to  ten,  or  his  tardinesses  at  prayers  to  five, 
or  his  absence  from  church  (half-day)  to  one,  he 
shall  be  immediately  reported  to  the  faculty,  and 
shall  receive  a  private  admonition." 

From  what  will  appear  later,  we  should  note  that 
reading  during  church  services  was  considered  as 
an  offence  against  "Good  Order  and  Decorum." 
Then,  too,  the  faculty  were  not  unmindful  of  the 
propriety  of  dress  on  the  part  of  students;  as  wit- 
ness this  provision:  "  On  Sabbaths,  on  Examination 
Days,  and  on  all  public  occasions,  each  student  is 
required  to  wear  in  public  a  black  coat  with  buttons 
of  the  same  color." 

A  careful  study  of  the  "Orders  and  Regulations" 
gives  the  impression  that  in  the  minds  of  the  faculty 
the  greatest  delinquency  on  the  part  of  a  student, 
and  the  one  against  which  the  heaviest  penalties 
should  be  brought,  was  the  neglect  of  religious 
services. 

The  enforcing  of  the  "Orders  and  Regulations" 
with  reference  to  religious  services  was  in  the  hands 
of  a  "  Parietal  Committee"  composed  of  the  officers 
of  the  college  living  within  the  college  walls.  This 
Committee  deputized  many  of  its  duties  to  mon- 

165 


John  Fiske 

itors  chosen  from  approved  students  of  the  senior 
class.  Thus,  under  these  provisions,  a  system  of  re- 
ligious espionage  was  established  throughout  the 
college  in  behalf  of  requirements  which  instinc- 
tively aroused  opposition,  which  made  a  virtue  of 
hypocrisy,  and  which  heavily  discredited  the  value 
of  scholarship  honors. 

Growing  out  of  these  religious  requirements  was 
a  very  noticeable  sight  to  be  seen  at  seven  o'clock 
every  morning  —  the  rush  of  students  to  morning 
prayers.  At  the  first  stroke  of  the  chapel  bell, 
a  motley  throng  of  students  was  seen  streaming 
through  Harvard  Square,  out  from  Garden  Street, 
and  the  purlieus  of  Kirkland  Street,  all  surging  into 
the  college  yard  and  all  intent  upon  one  thing: 
getting  within  the  chapel  door  before  the  last  stroke 
of  the  bell.  It  was,  indeed,  a  motley  throng:  some 
were  adjusting  any  old  hat  to  locks  of  hair  much 
dishevelled;  some  were  putting  on  collars  or  tying 
neckerchiefs;  some  were  getting  into  coats  or  ad- 
justing discordant  garments;  some  were  making 
long  coats,  buttoned  closely  at  the  neck,  "  cover  a 
multitude  of  sins";  some  were  hopping  on  one  foot 
and  lacing  a  shoe  on  the  other;  while  here  and  there 
might  be  observed  students,  who,  having  paid  due 
attention  to  their  sartorial  appearance,  were  pro- 
ceeding leisurely  to  the  chapel.  In  one  sense  the 
scene  was  intensely  amusing.  It  was  a  very  distinct 
presentation  of  some  of  the  difficulties  which  sur- 
rounded the  pursuit  of  knowledge  at  Harvard.  In 

1 66 


College  Halls 

another  and  far  deeper  sense,  the  scene,  as  a  whole, 
showed  that  the  attempt  to  teach  or  inculcate  re- 
ligion by  a  universal,  formal  observance  had  made 
the  observance  ridiculous.  Viewed  in  its  everyday 
aspect,  the  call  to  prayers,  with  its  penalties,  had 
much  more  the  aspect  of  a  roll-call  of  the  students 
for  the  purpose  of  bringing  them  under  the  eye  of  a 
monitor,  to  be  checked  off  and  counted,  than  as  a 
summons  to  a  religious  exercise. 

Reviewing  the  academic  course  as  a  whole  and 
in  the  light  of  the  "Orders  and  Regulations,"  the 
criticism  of  the  college  in  1866,  by  a  distinguished 
alumnus,  applies  with  even  greater  force  to  the  col- 
lege of  1 860.  At  the  inauguration  of  the  new  era  at 
the  college  in  1866,  the  Reverend  Frederick  H. 
Hedge,  D.D.,  gave  an  address  before  a  triennial 
festival  of  the  alumni  and  spoke  of  the  then  condi- 
tion of  the  college  thus:  — 

"The  college  proper  is  simply  a  more  advanced 
school  for  boys,  not  differing  essentially  in  principle 
and  theory  from  the  public  schools  in  all  our  towns. 
In  this,  as  in  those,  the  principle  is  coercion.  Hold 
your  subject  fast  in  one  hand  and  pour  knowledge 
into  him  with  the  other.  The  Professors  are  task- 
masters and  police-officers  —  the  President  the 
chief  of  the  college  police. " 

As  complementary  to  this  state  of  things,  in  1860, 
the  college  halls  or  dormitories  were  the  Massachu- 
setts, Stoughton,  and  Hollis  buildings.  These  halls 
were  hardly  more  than  barracks:  they  were  sadly 


John  Fiske 

deficient  in  sanitary  provisions  as  well  as  without 
the  conveniences  of  common  life.  Each  student  had 
to  supply  himself  with  water  for  all  purposes  from 
the  pumps  in  the  college  yard ;  and  water  stood  in 
the  cellars  of  all  the  halls  most  of  the  time.  It  was 
not  until  1860  —  Fiske's  entrance  year  —  that  gas 
was  put  into  the  halls  and  the  yard  lighted. 

But  the  academic  course  of  study  and  its  inter- 
pretation by  the  faculty  and  instructors  were  not 
the  only  educative  influences  that  were  operative 
upon  the  broadly  developing  mind  of  Fiske  during 
his  three  years  of  undergraduate  life  at  Harvard. 
These  three  years  comprised  a  portion  of  an  event- 
ful period  in  religious,  scientific,  and  political  think- 
ing at  Harvard,  the  results  of  which  were  more  or 
less  felt  in  all  departments  of  the  college,  while  they 
were  prolific  of  much  grave  questioning  on  the  part 
of  thoughtful  students.  As  the  great  activity  along 
these  fundamental  lines  of  thinking  had  a  powerful 
effect  upon  the  expanding  mind  of  Fiske,  and  as  in 
subsequent  years  we  are  to  trace  his  career  as  a 
leader  in  setting  forth  the  philosophic  import  of 
these  new  lines  of  thought,  it  is  well  to  take  here  a 
brief  survey  of  three  important  questions  —  three 
fundamental  subjects  of  thought,  which,  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  time,  were,  during  his  under- 
graduate period,  thrust,  as  it  were,  directly  into 
the  very  life  of  the  college. 

It  should  be  stated  that  in  the  course  of  its  de- 

168 


Unitarianism 

velopment  there  had  grown  up  around  the  college 
some  professional  and  observational  schools  which 
were  more  or  less  incidentally  related  to  the  college, 
either  as  giving  aid  to  the  instruction  or  as  offering 
post-graduate  courses  of  professional  study.  These 
were  the  Harvard  Divinity  School,  the  Harvard 
Law  School,  the  Harvard  Medical  School,  the  Law- 
rence Scientific  School,  an  Astronomical  Observ- 
atory, and  a  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology. 
These  professional  and  observational  schools,  with 
the  college  proper,  made  up  the  institution  known 
as  Harvard  University  —  the  whole  being  under  the 
executive  management  and  control  of  the  President 
of  Harvard  College.  ! 

The  three  questions  referred  to  were  of  a  reli- 
gious, a  scientific,  and  a  political  nature;  and  they 
were  focussed  at  the  college  mainly  through  the 
incidental  relations  existing  between  the  Divinity 
School,  the  Scientific  School,  and  the  Law  School, 
respectively,  on  the  one  hand;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  the  college  as  an  institution  of  learning,  with 
a  large  body  of  inquiring  students. 

What  is  Unitarianism  ? 

The  first  of  these  questions  may  be  stated  thus: 
Is  Unitarianism,  as  interpreted  by  the  Divinity 
School,  and  as  accepted  by  the  college,  consistent 
with  the  fundamental  tenets  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion and  the  revelations  of  science  ? 

For  full  fifty  years  the  Presidents  of  Harvard 

169 


John  Fiske 

College  had  been  clergymen  or  laymen  of  the  Uni- 
tarian faith.  For  over  thirty  years  the  Harvard 
Divinity  School  had  been  the  headquarters  of  Uni- 
tarianism  in  America.  Here  the  great  preachers  of 
the  denomination  had  been  trained :  men  like  Gan- 
nett, Bellows,  Furness,  Emerson,  Osgood,  Dewey, 
Theodore  Parker,  James  Freeman  Clarke,  Froth- 
ingham,  Ellis,  Huntington,  Hale,  and  others.  Its 
leading  professors  were  Unitarians,  and  on  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Plummer  Professorship  of  Chris- 
tian Morals,  in  1855,  on  an  endowment  from  Miss 
Caroline  Plummer,  of  Salem,  Massachusetts,  with 
its  accompanying  post  of  Preacher  to  the  Univer- 
sity, one  of  the  most  distinguished  clergymen  of  the 
Unitarian  denomination,  the  Reverend  Frederick 
D.  Huntington,  was  selected  for  the  chair.  Harvard 
College,  therefore,  was  rightly  regarded  as  a  Unita- 
rian college,  and  as  such  it  was  generally  credited 
with  admitting  the  utmost  liberality  of  thought  in 
all  matters  pertaining  to  religious  belief. 

In  January,  1860,  Harvard  College,  the  Divinity 
School,  and  the  Unitarian  denomination  were  all 
startled  from  their  state  of  religious  complacency 
by  Dr.  Huntington's  resignation  from  his  professor- 
ship at  the  college,  and  from  his  post  of  Preacher  to 
the  University,  followed  shortly  after  by  his  be- 
coming a  candidate  for  orders  in  the  Episcopal 
Church.  Never  before  in  this  country  did  a  change 
in  any  individual's  religious  faith  and  practice  make 
such  a  profound  and  widespread  impression  upon 

170 


Unitarianism 

the  public  mind  as  did  this.  The  prominence,  the 
abilities,  the  high  character  of  Dr.  Huntington 
gave  much  denominational  significance  to  his  ac- 
tion. It  was  a  severe  blow  to  conservative  Unitari- 
anism. It  was  hailed  with  great  joy  by  the  various 
evangelical  denominations.  But  the  reasons  assigned 
for  the  change  of  faith  went  deeper  than  mere  de- 
nominational lines.  They  were  such  as  to  bring 
under  full  review  the  binding  force  of  the  funda- 
mental Christian  dogmas  in  the  light  of  modern 
science  and  historic  and  philologic  criticism.1 

1  In  an  autobiographic  article  published  in  The  Forum  for  June, 
1886,  we  find  a  summary  of  Dr.  Huntington's  reasons  for  his  change 
of  religious  faith:  — 

"  It  appeared  to  H.  that  beneath  the  shiftings  on  the  current  of 
speculation,  there  was  a  change  at  work  in  the  whole  doctrinal  basis 
of  the  denomination  to  which  he  had  belonged.  Doubtless  that  the 
jejune  self-interested  moralizing  of  the  Priestley  and  the  English 
socinian  school  should  be  spiritualized  by  a  lofty  appeal  to  conscious- 
ness and  insight  under  a  direct  power  of  the  spirit  of  God,  was  an  im- 
measurable gain.  St.  Paul  proclaimed  an  eternal  law  when  he  wrote 
'Spiritual  things  are  spiritually  discerned.'  But  Christianity  is  a 
revelation.  Of  that  revelation  there  is  a  record.  Its  credentials,  its 
history,  the  general  and  reverent  consent  of  eighteen  Christian  cen- 
turies, its  marvellous  power  over  civilized  peoples  hardly  less  than 
miraculous,  invest  it  with  tremendous  sanctions.  There  is  no  trace 
of  anything  like  Christian  culture  apart  from  its  authority.  In  open 
questions  it  has  been,  what  there  must  be,  a  court  of  ultimate  ap- 
peal. Hitherto  H.  had  seen  it  so  held  in  his  own  as  well  as  in  other 
Protestant  bodies.  Throughout  the  Unitarian  and  Trinitarian  polem- 
ics, that  appeal  had  been  made  with  confidence  by  both  sides  alike. 
The  main  question  was:  What  do  the  Scriptures  teach  and  mean? 
It  was  a  question  of  interpretation  of  documents,  hardly  a  question 
of  whether  the  documents  were  authentic  and  binding.  ...  In  the 
short  space  of  twenty  years  the  Unitarian  press  and  pulpit  virtually 
ceased  to.  make  a  stand  on  the  foundation  which  had  been  known  as 
the  Word  of  God.  .  .  .  He  asked  himself:  Is  there  anywhere  in  eccle- 
siastical annals,  an  instance  of  so  swift  a  plunge  downwards  in  any  as- 
sociation of  people  bearing  the  name  of  Christ,  simply  losing  hold  of 

171 


John  Fiske 

Thus,  during  the  period  we  are  reviewing,  1 860-63, 
What  is  Unitarianism?  and,  What  is  its  attitude 
toward  modern  knowledge?  were  flung  as  vital  ques- 
tions into  the  intellectual  life  of  Harvard. 

Fiske,  as  might  be  expected,  took  a  deep  interest 
in  this  discussion;  and  as  we  are  to  see  in  later  years 
that  his  mature  philosophic  thought  found  a  ready 
welcome  among  Unitarians  generally,  it  is  worth 
while  to  pause  a  bit  in  our  narrative,  and  take  a 
glance  at  the  kind  of  religious  faith  which,  under 
the  name  of  Unitarianism,  Harvard  was  offering  at 
this  time  to  her  students,  accompanied  by  such  pen- 
alties as  we  have  seen  for  non-compliance  with  its 
formal  requirements,  penalties  which  were  made  to 
weigh  so  heavily  against  scholarly  honors. 

Just  a  brief  chapter  of  ecclesiastical  history.  It 
was  under  the  lead  of  William  Ellery  Channing 
that  Unitarianism  as  a  distinct  form  of  religious 
belief  became  established  during  the  early  part  of 
the  last  century  —  1815  to  1825  —  in  New  England. 
It  came  as  a  quiet  protest  on  the  part  of  a  number  of 

the  central  fact  of  revelation?  H.  could  no  longer  be  content  with  a 
kind  of  Christianity  destitute  of  a  Christ  in  whom  is  all  the  fulness 
and  power  of  God,  without  an  inspired  charter,  without  the  law  and 
inheritance  and  corporate  energy  and  universal  offer  of  the  gifts  and 
graces  of  eternal  life,  in  a  visible  church." 

That  Dr.  Huntington  left  the  college  with  "  strained  relations  "  is 
evident  from  the  curt  mention  of  his  resignation  in  the  Annual  Re- 
port of  the  President  for  the  college  year  1859-60:  — 

"  Professor  Huntington  having  resigned  his  place  after  five  years 
of  devoted  service,  his  resignation  was  accepted  at  the  close  of  the 
year,  and  a  special  arrangement  was  made  with  him  by  the  President 
to  perform  or  provide  for  the  duties  of  the  office  until  the  end  of  the 
following  term." 

172 


Unitarianism 

sincerely  religious  minds  against  many  of  the  dog- 
mas of  the  Calvinistic  theology.  It  grew  directly 
out  of  the  Calvinistic  Congregational  churches: 
many  of  these  churches  transforming  themselves 
bodily  into  Congregational  Unitarian  churches.  It 
was  a  change  of  religious  faith,  without  a  schism 
in  the  church  organization.1  With  Dr.  Channing, 
Unitarianism  stood  for  the  freest  thought  in  reli- 
gious matters  and  the  widest  toleration  for  religious 
beliefs.  It  affirmed  the  Divine  Fatherhood  of  God 
and  His  creating  all  things  good;  it  affirmed  the 
innate  goodness  of  the  human  soul  as  a  part  of  the 
Divine  Nature,  and  as  possessing  conscious  reason 
as  a  means  of  knowing  the  good;  it  affirmed  a  belief 
in  God's  revelation  of  Himself:  in  the  world  of  Na- 
ture; in  the  heart  of  man,  inclining  him  to  worship 
and  to  acts  of  brotherhood;  and  in  the  Bible  —  the 
last  a  special  revelation  of  the  Divine  Will  and  Pur- 
pose; it  affirmed  a  belief  in  Christ  as  a  divinely  in- 
spired man  sent  as  a  type  for  humanity  to  model 
itself  by. 

The  enunciation  of  this  comparatively  simple 
form  of  religious  belief  brought  the  Unitarians  into 
a  bitter  controversy  with  their  orthodox  brethren 

1  People  outside  of  New  England  are  often  confused  by  the  fact 
that  in  New  England  both  the  orthodox  or  Calvinistic  churches  and 
the  Unitarian  churches  have  the  same  generic  title  of  Congregational 
churches  or  societies.  Even  Theodore  Parker's  church  had  its  legal 
title  in  the  "  Twenty-eighth  Congregational  Society."  This  anomalous 
condition  of  things  has  its  explanation  in  the  text — the  original  Unita- 
rian churches  or  societies  were  simply  Calvinistic  churches  or  societies 
transformed  as  to  their  religious  belief. 

173 


John  Fiske 

over  points  of  doctrine  in  the  Calvinistic  theology. 
The  Unitarians  were  charged  with  leaving  the  vital 
elements  of  Christianity  out  of  their  scheme;  some 
of  their  opponents  went  so  far  as  to  call  them  down- 
right infidels.  But  in  spite  of  the  opposition  the 
Unitarians  steadily  grew  in  numbers,  and  among 
them  were  the  most  cultivated  people  of  New  Eng- 
land ;  and  they  soon  came  to  possess  a  controlling  in- 
fluence at  Harvard  College. 

In  1825  they  formed  an  Association  for  confer- 
ence and  mutual  support;  and  in  order  the  better 
to  supply  their  denomination  with  pastors  and 
preachers  they  established  a  Divinity  School  in  con- 
nection with  Harvard  College.  They  wished  to  be 
known  as  liberal  Christians,  and  by  1830  they  had 
become  a  powerful  religious  organization  in  New 
England. 

But  they  were  not  long  in  religious  peace  among 
themselves.  Out  from  their  own  Association  came 
two  heretics,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  and  Theodore 
Parker,  men  of  the  broadest  culture,  both  breathing 
the  same  spirit  of  religious  liberty  and  toleration; 
and  both  animated  with  the  same  love  to  God  and 
man  that  the  Unitarians  themselves  professed.  But 
Emerson  and  Parker  went  further  than  their  Uni- 
tarian brethren  in  their  dissent  from  Calvinistic 
theology.  They  would  have  religion  consist  of 
heartfelt  affirmations  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  of 
God  revealed  in  all  that  exists;  together  with  affirm- 
ations of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  to  be  exemplified 

174 


Unitarianism 

in  upright  conduct  as  necessary  for  the  fulness  of 
individual  human  life;  these  affirmations  to  be  at- 
tended by  no  sacraments  or  binding  formalities  be- 
yond the  expression  of  grateful,  cheerful  hearts  and 
upright  lives. 

Conservative  Unitarians  were  shocked  at  the 
simplicity  of  these  affirmations,  and  were  fright- 
ened at  the  application  of  their  boasted  liberality 
to  these  progressives.  Like  their  orthodox  brethren 
of  a  few  years  before,  they  found  themselves  facing 
a  heresy  in  their  own  midst  which  swept  away  all 
theologic  dogmas  and  creeds  whatsoever,,  and  to 
which  by  their  own  principles  they  must  extend 
complete  toleration.  Had  Dr.  Channing  lived  a 
few  years  longer,  the  course  of  events  might  have 
been  different.  Deprived  of  his  inspiring  leader- 
ship, the  Unitarians  lost  faith  in  their  affirmations 
as  well  as  in  the  great  principle  of  toleration.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  the  words  of  Lowell :  — 

"  They  brandished  their  worn  theological  birches, 
Bade  natural  progress  keep  out  of  the  churches/' 

and  began  a  retreat.  They  treated  Emerson  and 
Parker  shabbily.  By  sugar-coating  with  mystical 
phrases  the  dogmas  of  Biblical  inspiration,  the 
miracles,  the  nature  and  office  of  Christ,  and  the 
Sacraments,  the  orthodox  view  of  them  was  made 
more  acceptable  to  timid  souls.  With  a  show  of 
learning.  German  criticism  of  Biblical  and  ecclesi- 
astical history  as  well  as  dogma  was  patronized, 
and  was  thought  unsuited  to  the  lay  mind  of  New 

175 


John  Fiske 

England.  Much  thought  was  given  to  speculative 
philosophy,  with  but  little  or  no  application  to  the 
social  needs  of  the  time.  Science  was  well  bespoken, 
and  in  its  name  the  varied  phenomena  of  the  uni- 
verse were  presented  as  evidences  of  Divine  crea- 
tion and  sustentation  in  conformity  to  a  specially 
revealed  will  or  purpose.  In  short,  by  eschewing 
Emerson  and  Parker,  Unitarianism  shut  itself  out 
from  the  great  forward  intellectual  movement  of 
the  period,  and  about  the  middle  of  the  century  it 
became  an  eminently  respectable,  cultured,  self- 
satisfying  form  of  religious  observances.  Well  might 
Fiske  think,  as  he  did,  on  his  first  attendance  at  a 
Unitarian  Church,  that  he  was  present  at  an  Epis- 
copal service.1 

It  was  between  1850  and  1860  that  the  scientifico- 
philosophic  thought  of  the  nineteenth  century  broke 
upon  all  religious  systems,  bringing  wholly  new 
conceptions  of  the  Divine  First  Cause  and  its  mode 
of  action  in  the  universe  of  objective  phenomena, 
and  also  in  the  world  of  subjective  phenomena  re- 
flected in  the  conscious  mind  of  man.  The  effect  of 
this  new  movement  in  thought  was  the  reconsidera- 
tion of  all  religious  dogmas  in  the  light  of  positive 
knowledge  and  reason,  and  when  Unitarianism, 
with  its  smug  religious  complacency,  was  brought 
under  philosophic  envisagement  in  the  light  of  sci- 
ence and  historic  criticism,  it  was  found  that  as  a 
religious  organization  it  had  nothing  tangible  to  tie 
•  1  Cf.  ante,  p.  131. 

176 


Unitarianism 

to  but  the  three  fundamental  points  given  by  Dr. 
Channing:  the  loving  Fatherhood  of  God,  declared 
in  all  His  work;  the  brotherhood  of  man,  an  essen- 
tial condition  for  the  fulness  of  life;  and  the  utmost 
toleration  of  thought  as  absolutely  necessary  for  at- 
taining religious  truth  —  all  of  which  had  been  com- 
promised by  evasions. 

There  followed  a  notable  parting  of  the  ways: 
a  movement  backward  as  well  as  forward;  and  the 
backward  movement  had  its  culmination  in  the  ac- 
tion taken  by  Dr.  Huntington.  And  his  was  the 
action  of  a  sincerely  devout  man,  in  whose  intel- 
lectual make-up  emotional  sensibility  had  prece- 
dence over  ratiocinative  methods  of  thinking.  He 
deliberately  chose  to  set  aside  (if  he  knew  them) 
the  facts  of  science  bearing  upon  man's  origin  and 
development,  as  well  as  the  results  of  Biblical  criti- 
cism as  affecting  the  truth  of  a  special  Divine  revela- 
tion, that  he  might  give  himself  up  unreservedly  to 
an  unquestioning  belief  in  the  fundamental  dogmas 
of  Christian  theology.  Of  him  this  can  be  said,  that 
into  his  interpretation  of  these  dogmas  he  imparted 
such  an  ethical  character  and  meaning  as  enabled 
him  to  become  a  preacher  of  social  righteousness 
hardly  second  to  any  man  of  his  time. 

Many  followed  Dr.  Huntington's  example.  In 
the  forward  movement,  however,  quite  other  per- 
sonal influences  were  at  work.  From  his  quiet  retreat 
at  Concord,  Emerson,  wholly  undisturbed  by  the 
religious  perturbations  of  the  time,  was  affirming, 

177 


John  Fiske 

in  words  that  have  taken  a  place  in  the  aphoristic 
wisdom  of  the  race,  that  "the  world  is  a  temple 
whose  walls  are  covered  with  emblems,  pictures,  and 
commandments  of  the  Deity" ;  that  "  the  faith  that 
stands  on  authority  is  not  faith";  that  "reliance 
on  authority  measures  the  decline  of  religion,  the 
withdrawal  of  the  soul";  that  "we  can  never  see 
Christianity  from  the  catechism ;  from  the  pastures, 
from  a  boat  in  the  pond,  from  amidst  the  song  of 
wood-birds  we  possibly  may";  that  "it  is  the  office 
of  a  true  teacher  to  show  us  that  God  is,  not  was; 
that  He  speaketh,  not  spake";  that  "there  is  no 
pure  lie,  no  pure  malignity  in  nature.  The  enter- 
tainment of  the  proposition  of  depravity  is  the 
last  profligacy  and  profanation";  that  "Ought  and 
Duty  are  one  with  Science,  Beauty,  and  Joy";  and 
that  "ineffable  is  the  union  of  God  and  man,  in 
every  act  of  the  soul."  Over  all  was  heard  the  res- 
onant voice  of  Parker,  as,  like  a  prophet  of  old, 
with  sublime  faith,  he  cried  out  from  his  national 
pulpit  in  Music  Hall  —  "On  to  reason  and  be  a 
man,  or  back  to  Rome  and  be  a  chimpanzee." 

During  the  period  1860-63  this  fermentation  of 
religious  thought  caused  by  Dr.  Huntington's  res- 
ignation was  greatly  intensified  by  events  we  are 
next  to  consider.  This  fermentation  was  surging 
all  about  the  Divinity  School,  and  permeated  the 
whole  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  college,  giving 
rise  to  much  questioning  on  the  part  of  thoughtful 
students  and  producing  a  discreet  silence  on  con- 

178 


Darwinism 

troverted  points  by  some  members  of  the  faculty. 
We  are  to  see  this  negative  sort  of  Harvard  Unita- 
rianism  threatening  Fiske  with  expulsion  for  opin- 
ions which  a  few  years  later  he  was  called  to  ex- 
pound to  the  college. 

Darwinism,  or  the  "Origin  of  Species11 
The  second  of  the  three  questions  referred  to 
came  before  the  public  primarily  as  a  scientific 
one  —  whence  the  origin  of  the  varied  forms  of  the 
faunal  and  floral  life  of  the  globe.  The  question  was 
presented  in  the  form  of  two  rival  theories:  the  first 
by  Professor  Louis  Agassiz  in  1858,  in  an  "Essay 
on  the  Classification  of  the  Animal  Kingdom,"  in 
which  the  theory  of  special  Divine  creation  of 
species  was  very  positively  asserted;  the  second,  in 
1859  by  Charles  Darwin,  by  the  publication  of  his 
"Origin  of  Species,"  a  work  in  which  he  suggested 
the  theory  of  organic  development  under  the  prin- 
ciple of  natural  selection.  He  brought  forward  a 
remarkable  series  of  original  observations  in  sup- 
port of  his  theory.  Involved  in  the  discussion  of 
these  two  theories  was  the  vital  question,  —  the 
origin  of  the  human  race,  —  and  as  the  conclusions 
of  these  two  eminent  scientists  bore,  the  one  affirma- 
tively, and  the  other  negatively,  upon  some  of  the 
fundamental  dogmas  of  the  Christian  faith,  there 
arose  immediately  a  scientifico-religious  contro- 
versy, world-wide  in  its  extent,  and  in  which  the 
ablest  scientists  and  theologians  were  engaged. 

179 


John  Fiske 

In  America,  this  discussion  was  centred  in  a 
measure  around  Harvard  College  by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  two  of  the  leading  scientists  in  this  country 
engaged  in  this  controversy  and  representing  the 
opposing  sides  were  professors  in  the  Lawrence 
Scientific  School  and  instructors  in  the  college  — 
Professor  Agassiz,  one  of  the  world's  great  zoologists, 
and  Professor  Asa  Gray,  one  of  the  world's  great 
botanists  and  the  firm  supporter  of  the  views  of  Mr. 
Darwin.  The  points  of  difference  between  these 
two  eminent  teachers  as  to  origins  of  organic  life 
were  apparent  in  their  instruction,  while  the  larger 
scientific  implications  of  their  views  as  to  "origins" 
were  set  forth  in  their  public  discussions.1 

It  is  not  in  place  here  to  enter  into  the  full  details 
of  the  Darwinian  discussion.  But  inasmuch  as  it 
was  an  active  element  in  the  Harvard  thought  of 
the  time,  and  inasmuch  as  the  labors  of  Mr.  Darwin 
were  a  very  important  contribution  to  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution,  in  the  setting-forth  of  which  Fiske 
was  to  take  a  conspicuous  part  in  subsequent  years, 
and  particularly  as  in  years  to  come  we  are  to  see 
Fiske  in  close  friendly  relations  with  Mr.  Darwin 
growing  out  of  their  respective  labors  in  behalf  of 
Evolution,  a  brief  presentation  of  the  origin  of  the 
discussion  is  appropriate  here. 

The  first  half  of  the  last  century  was  a  period  of 

1  Professor  Gray  published  a  series  of  articles  on  the  Darwinian 
theory  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  which  were  so  imbued  with  his  wide 
knowledge  of  organic  phenomena,  and  were  withal  so  admirable  in 
tone,  that  they  were  a  great  influence  in  favor  of  the  new  theory. 

1 80 


Darwinism 

great  scientific  activity,  and  it  was  specially  marked 
by  searching  inquiries  into  the  phenomena  of  or- 
ganic life  as  revealed  in  the  past  and  present  con- 
dition of  the  globe.  To  this  end  the  departments  of 
geology,  palaeontology,  embryology,  zoology,  ethnol- 
ogy, physiology,  and  botany  were  interrogated  by 
able  observers  intent  upon  getting  at  the  funda- 
mental facts  conditioning  organic  life,  both  in  its 
particulars  and  in  its  widest  generalities. 

It  is  in  evidence  that  these  investigators  at 
every  stage  of  their  inquiries  found  themselves  face 
to  face  with  a  fresh  and  greater  mystery  —  the 
mystery  of  origins.  From  the  knowledge  we  now 
possess  of  these  various  investigations,  we  know  that 
the  idea  of  transformation  or  development  in  con- 
formity to  changed  conditions  of  physical  environ- 
ment, an  idea  suggested  by  Goethe  and  Lamarck  in 
the  early  part  of  the  century,  was  not  an  infrequent 
thought  in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  investigators. 
This  idea,  however,  being  directly  opposed  to  the 
accepted  theory  of  origin  by  the  direct,  miraculous, 
creative  action  of  Divine  Power,  and  having  no 
sufficient  basis  in  observed  phenomena  to  rest 
upon,  was  regarded  by  the  leaders  in  science  as 
untenable  'and  by  theologians  as  the  height  of  in- 
fidelity if  not  downright  atheism.  But  this  opposi- 
tion could  not  keep  the  broadening  thought  of  in- 
dependent inquirers  wholly  in  subjection.  Witness 
the  anonymous  publication  of  "Vestiges  of  Crea- 
tion," a  superficial  book  viewed  from  to-day,  but 

181 


John  Fiske 

a  work  profoundly  significant  of  the  unrest  of  the 
period. 

In  1850  Professor  Agassiz  was  rightly  regarded 
as  one  of  the  great  scientific  men  of  the  world.  His 
contributions  to  science  had  been  important  and 
many.  His  zoological  knowledge  had  been  acquired 
largely  by  personal  observations  and  was  indeed 
profound.  He  had  received  from  orthodox  theolo- 
gians the  titles  of  infidel  and  atheist,  because,  as  a 
geologist,  he  had  denied  as  Divine  truth  the  Mosaic 
cosmogony,  and  as  a  zoologist  the  "one  pair  "  theory 
for  the  origin  of  animal  life.  In  1855  he  undertook 
a  fresh  classification  of  the  animal  kingdom  on  the 
basis  of  Cuvier's  classification  in  1817,  with  the 
additions  that  had  since  been  made  to  zoological 
knowledge.  This  was  a  task  commensurate  with 
his  wide  knowledge  and  his  rare  powers  of  lucid  ex- 
position. 

The  first  volume  of  this  great  work  was  published 
in  1857  and  it  contained  an  "Essay  on  Classifica- 
tion" which  was  a  prolegomena  to  the  whole  work, 
in  which  Professor  Agassiz  affirmed,  with  great 
positiveness  and  much  heat  of  argument,  the  direct 
and  miraculous  action  of  the  Divine  Creator  in  the 
origin  and  distribution  of  the  animal  life  of  the 
globe;  and  further,  that  this  special  form  of  creative 
action  had  existed  through  the  vast  periods  of  geo- 
logic time. 

This  essay  was  written  in  such  a  trenchant,  ag- 
gressive style,  it  was  so  positive  in  its  interpretation 

182 


Darwinism 

of  observed  phenomena,  and  was  fortified  with  such 
a  display  of  apparently  supporting  authorities,  that 
the  scientific  world  was  roused  to  the  consciousness 
that  under  a  great  scientific  name  Science  and 
Theology  were  conjoined  in  giving  a  special  teleo- 
logical  interpretation  to  the  origin,  distribution, 
and  sustentation  of  all  organic  life.  Professor 
Agassiz  went  so  far  as  to  invoke  the  aid  of  meta- 
physics by  claiming  that  species  had  no  material 
existence,  that  they  were  but  objective  representa- 
tions of  categories  of  thought  existing  in  the  Divine 
Mind. 

Theologians  of  all  orthodox  creeds  were  delighted. 
In  view  of  Professor  Agassiz 's  uncompromising  ad- 
vocacy of  special  Divine  creations,  the  charges 
against  him  of  infidelity  and  atheism  were  over- 
looked, and  he  was  hailed  as  the  great  champion 
who  had  at  last  enthroned  a  personal,  miracle- 
working  God  upon  a  thoroughly  scientific  basis. 

While  Professor  Agassiz  was  collecting  the  ma- 
terials for  his  great  work,  another  eminent  scientist, 
an  earnest,  patient  observer  of  the  phenomena  of 
organic  life,  one  who  had  had  exceptional  oppor- 
tunities for  personal  observations  by  extended  ex- 
plorations in  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  who 
found  himself  sorely  perplexed  satisfactorily  to  ac- 
count for  the  origin  and  distribution  of  the  great 
variety  of  the  earth's  flora  and  fauna,  had  retired  to 
Down,  a  quiet  place  just  outside  London,  where  he 
could,  the  while  in  communication  with  leading 

183 


John  Fiske 

scientists,  pursue  his  quest  ^for  a  more  rational 
explanation  of  the  origin  and  distribution  of  the 
world's  organic  life  than  was  afforded  by  the  gener- 
ally accepted  theory  of  special  Divine  creations. 

The  story  of  the  life  of  Charles  Darwin  during 
the  twenty  years  he  spent  in  brooding  over  the 
theory  of  organic  development  and  natural  selec- 
tion with  which  his  name  is  identified;  the  honest 
patience  with  which  he  sought  facts  from  every 
possible  source ;  the  care  with  which  he  classified  the 
facts  and  the  fairness  with  which  he  weighed  their 
evidence  both  for  and  against  his  theory;  his  cor- 
respondence with  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  the  eminent 
geologist,  with  Sir  Joseph  D.  Hooker  and  our  own 
Professor  Asa  Gray,  two  of  the  most  distinguished 
botanists  then  living,  —  a  correspondence  which 
shows  how  these  leaders  in  science,  starting  in  op- 
position to  Darwin's  theory,  at  last  became  con  verts 
to  it,  so  that  on  its  publication  they  became  sponsors 
for  it  to  the  scientific  world,  —  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  chapters  in  the  whole  history  of  science. 

Darwin  published  his  theory  under  the  title  of 
"The  Origin  of  Species  by  Means  of  Natural  Se- 
lection," in  which  he  placed  himself  squarely  in 
favor  of  the  theory  of  Development  or  Evolution, 
as  the  method  by  which  the  world  had  been  peopled 
with  its  varieties  of  organic  life.  The  work  was 
issued  in  1859,  just  two  years  after  the  publication 
of  Professor  Agassiz's  "Essay  on  Classification." 
The  style  was  simple,  clear,  direct,  and  not  in  the 

184 


Darwinism 

slightest  degree  dogmatic  in  tone.  The  facts  pre- 
sented, however,  were  so  significant,  and  they  were 
so  clearly  and  logically  arranged,  as  completely  to 
traverse  the  fundamental  points  in  Professor  Agas- 
siz's  essay;  and  further,  the  points  that  naturally 
arose  against  the  theory  of  Development  were  so 
frankly  stated  and  so  dispassionately  reviewed  that 
no  impartial  mind  could  rise  from  a  reading  of  the 
work  without  a  respect  for  the  author,  even  if  un- 
able to  accept  his  views. 

The  publication  of  the  theory  made  a  profound 
impression  on  the  public  mind.  It  was  bitterly  at- 
tacked by  theologians  of  all  schools,  as  well  as 
by  scientists  with  theological  beliefs  stronger  than 
their  faith  in  the  truths  of  science.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  cordially  endorsed  by  scientists  like 
Lyell,  Hooker,  Lubbuck,  Alfred  Wallace,  Asa  Gray, 
and  particularly  by  Huxley,  the  champion  debater 
of  the  time,  who  came  to  its  support  well  equipped 
witH  a  knowledge  drawn  from  the  whole  armory 
of  science,  and  whose  pen  in  the  bitter  theologic 
contests  that  ensued  became  as  potent  as  the  magic 
spear  of  Ithuriel. 

And  thus  between  the  upholders  of  the  theologic 
theory  of  special  creations  and  the  advocates  of 
the  theory  of  Evolution  in  regard  to  the  origin  and 
the  distribution  of  the  organic  life  of  the  globe,  an 
issue  was  distinctly  joined,  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant issue,  in  the  long  contest  between  Science 
and  Theology. 

185 


John  Fiske 

As  we  survey  this  conflict  just  half  a  century 
after,1  what  a  transformation  has  taken  place  in  all 
the  higher  phases  of  human  thinking.  The  doctrine 
of  Evolution  has  been  accepted  by  science,  causing 
the  remodelling  of  nearly  every  one  of  its  depart- 
ments. Evolution  has  also  given  a  scientific  basis 
to  sociology,  the  great  benefit  of  which  to  the  so- 
cial and  spiritual  well-being  of  the  race  cannot  yet 
be  estimated.  Above  all,  it  is  causing  all  religious 
creeds  to  remodel  their  dogmas  so  as  to  present  their 
conceptions  of  the  Divine  Power  back  of  all  that  is, 
consistent  with  the  manner  of  unfolding  Himself 
in  the  universe  of  material  things,  as  well  as  con- 
sistent with  the  conceptions  of  his  spiritual  existence 
adumbrated  in  the  ethical  consciousness  of  man. 
And  the  one  great  work  of  the  epoch,  the  one  that 
rises  above  all  others,  and  takes  its  place  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  learning  beside  the  works  of  Aristotle, 
the  "Novum  Organum"  of  Bacon  and  the  "Prin- 
cipia"  of  Newton,  is  Darwin's  "Origin  of  Species." 

As  we  leave  this  great  discussion,  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  in  March,  1860,  shortly  before  leaving 
Middletown  for  Cambridge,  Fiske  records  the  con- 
secutive reading  of  Agassiz's  "Essay  on  Classifi- 
cation," Asa  Gray's  "Structural  and  Systematic 
Botany,"  and  Darwin's  "Origin  of  Species."  In 
this  record  Darwin  and  his  work  appear  thus:  — 

DARWIN,  "The  Origin  of  Species." 

1  This  chapter  was  written  in  1909. 
186 


War  Powers  of  the  President 

This  putting  the  author's  name  in  capitals  was 
Fiske's  way  of  indicating  that  Darwin  was  one  of 
the  great  thinkers  who  were  influential  in  shaping 
his  own  thought  at  this  period. 

The  War  Powers  of  the  President 
The  third  of  these  questions  grew  out  of  a  memo- 
rable exigency  in  our  great  Civil  War  struggle.  It 
might  be  termed  "The  War  Powers  of  the  Presi- 
dent." It  arose  primarily  as  a  legal  or  constitutional 
question,  but  by  the  disturbed  political  condition 
of  the  time  it  soon  became  a  political  as  well  as  a 
military  question  and  thus  was  brought  home  to 
every  citizen.  It  had  its  origin  as  a  political  ques- 
tion in  the  action  of  President  Lincoln  in  issuing 
his  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  and  military  or- 
ders supplementary  thereto  for  the  suppression  of 
the  rebellion.  These  acts  were  immediately  chal- 
lenged by  the  opponents  of  the  Administration  at 
the  North,  on  the  alleged  ground  of  their  uncon- 
stitutionally, and  a  bitter  political  controversy  en- 
sued which  for  a  time  greatly  endangered  the  Union 
cause.  This  controversy,  aside  from  the  great  pub- 
lic interest  in  it,  was  projected  directly  into  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  of  Harvard  College  by  rea- 
son of  the  strong  divisive  opinions  regarding  it 
which  prevailed  in  the  Law  School:  the  Profes- 
sor of  Constitutional  Law,  Joel  Parker,  LL.D.,  bit- 
terly assailing  the  President  both  privately  and 
publicly,  while  the  Professor  of  Commercial  Law, 

187 


John  Fiske 

Theophilus  Parsons,  LL.D.,  was  vigorously  sustain- 
ing him. 

In  view  of  the  historic  importance  of  this  great 
discussion,  and  as  we  are  soon  to  see  the  serenity  of 
Fiske's  student  life  greatly  disturbed  by  it,  and 
further,  as  in  his  mature  years  Fiske  is  to  give  us 
the  best  history  we  have  of  the  growth  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Constitution,  a  brief  sketch  of 
the  events  which  brought  this  "  Charter  of  our 
Liberties'*  to  its  greatest  trial,  and  under  his  own 
observation,  is  in  place  here. 

In  the  summer  of  1862  President  Lincoln  found 
himself  facing  a  critical  period  in  his  Administration. 
The  partial  victory  at  Antietam  had  not  retrieved 
McClellan's  terrible  disaster  before  Richmond. 
There  were  divided  counsels  in  the  Administration, 
and  the  war  languished.  Hitherto  the  war  had  been 
conducted  on  the  theory  that  the  issue  was  simply 
and  only  a  constitutional  one  —  the  protection  of 
an  abstract  instrument  of  political  organization  and 
the  enforcement  of  its  provisions  as  interpreted 
by  the  people  of  the  Northern  States.  No  person, 
no  one  in  rebellion  in  the  Southern  States  even,  un- 
less a  prisoner  of  war,  had  yet  been  deprived  of  his 
legal  rights  to  person  or  property  under  the  Consti- 
tution. The  moral  sentiment  of  the  people  of  the 
Northern  States,  reflected  in  their  opposition  to 
slavery,  was  strong  in  the  insistence  that  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery,  being  the  real  cause  of  the  war, 
should  be  made  to  suffer  by  the  war.  This  anti- 

188 


War  Powers  of  the  President 

slavery  feeling  had  very  generally  gone  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  President,  at  the  same  time  urging  with 
much  impatience  more  aggressive  measures  against 
the  "peculiar  institution."  But  the  Administration 
had  a  strong,  unrelenting  pro-slavery  party  at  the 
North  to  contend  with  as  well  as  with  the  South- 
erners in  arms. 

President  Lincoln,  by  the  summer  of  1862,  had 
come  to  see  that  the  war  as  it  had  been  conducted 
by  the  Administration  had  no  clearly  defined  moral 
issue  back  of  it,  and  that  he  could  no  longer  find 
justification  in  continuing  such  a  terrible  conflict 
as  he  was  waging  against  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  on  the  sole  issue  of  an  interpretation  of  the 
Constitution.  He  saw  the  necessity,  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  Nation,  of  getting  the  issue  squarely  on 
its  merits  as  a  moral  issue  —  a  conflict  between  the 
idea  of  freedom  and  the  idea  of  slavery,  and  then 
uniting  the  moral  and  political  forces  of  the  North 
in  support  of  his  policy. 

To  this  end  he  moved  on  his  own  initiative;  and 
one  of  the  finest  chapters  in  all  statesmanship  is  the 
history  of  his  skill,  his  patience,  his  wisdom,  his 
faith  in  rousing  the  dominant  moral  feeling  of  the 
North  and  focussing  it  in  support  of  his  Proclama- 
tion of  Emancipation. 

This  memorable  document  was  issued  on  the  22d 
of  September,  1862,  and  two  days  later  the  Presi- 
dent proclaimed  the  establishment  of  martial  law 
and  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 

189 


John  Fiske 

throughout  the  United  States,  as  against  any  per- 
sons "guilty  of  any  disloyal  practice  in  affording 
aid  and  comfort  to  the  rebels  against  the  authority 
of  the  United  States.*'  These  two  proclamations, 
with  subsidiary  orders  from  the  War  Department 
putting  them  into  effect,  were  issued  as  war  meas- 
ures; and  while  they  served  to  unite  the  loyal  peo- 
ple of  the  North  in  a  more  vigorous  prosecution  of 
the  war,  they  stirred  to  greater  activity  than  ever 
the  opponents  of  the  Administration  who  declared 
that  the  President's  proclamations  were  not  only 
unconstitutional,  but  that  they  were  also  subver- 
sive of  the  fundamental  principles  of  republican 
government  —  in  short,  the  Administration  was 
more  severely  denounced  than  the  rebels  it  was 
fighting. 

Among  the  prominent  citizens  in  the  North  who 
took  this  position  of  opposition  to  the  Administra- 
tion was  Benjamin  R.  Curtis,  of  Boston,  late  Justice 
of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  of  whose  en- 
gaging personality  we  have  already  had  some  de- 
lightful sketches.  Judge  Curtis  enjoyed  the  repu- 
tation of  being  one  of  the  ablest  judges  that  ever 
sat  on  the  Supreme  Bench.  His  knowledge  of  con- 
stitutional law  was  indeed  profound,  and  he  was 
not  identified  with  any  political  party. 

In  this  great  crisis  Judge  Curtis,  as  an  independ- 
ent citizen,  felt  called  upon  to  speak.  In  a  pam- 
phlet under  the  title  of  "Executive  Power,"  ad- 
dressed "to  all  persons  who  have  sworn  to  support 

190 


War  Powers  of  the  President 

the  Constitution,  and  to  all  citizens  who  value  civil 
liberty/*  he  reviewed  in  a  respectful  manner  the 
President's  war  measures;  and  in  language  of  great 
plainness  and  force,  he  pointed  out  how  in  his 
judgment  the  President,  under  the  plea  of  mili- 
tary necessity,  was  subverting  the  Constitution, 
and  establishing  in  its  stead  the  supremacy  of  mil- 
itary law.1 

This  pamphlet  was  widely  read  and  the  inde- 
pendent position  of  Judge  Curtis  gave  his  views 
great  weight  in  the  public  mind.  His  argument 
gave  the  Northern  opponents  of  the  President  the 
semblance  of  a  distinct  constitutional  ground  for 
their  opposition,  and  the  issue  was  brought  directly 
home  to  Harvard  College  by  the  prominence  in  the 

.  discussion  of  the  two  professors  in  the  Law  School 
already  named.  The  contest  waxed  strong  and  fu- 

:  rious.  By  one  party,  President  Lincoln  was  branded 
as  a  tyrant  who  ought  to  be  impeached;  by  the 
other,  Judge  Curtis  and  Professor  Parker  were 
branded  as  traitors  who  ought  to  be  imprisoned.2 

1  Studying,  in  the  light  of  to-day,  this  pamphlet  and  what  followed, 
we  see  how  clearly  the  loyal  people  of  the  North,  in  the  darkest  days 
of  the  war,  saw  the  real  issue  involved  in  the  struggle;  and  we  also 
see  how  much  wiser  was  President  Lincoln,  in  his  interpretation  of 
his  duty  under  the  Constitution,  than  were  the  eminent  jurists  who 
found  its  provisions  for  the  protection  to  persons  and  property  of 
those  who  would  destroy  the  Government  stronger  than  its  provisions 
for  the  protection  of  those  who  would  save  it. 

It  is  said  that  when  Mr.  Lincoln  had  read  Judge  Curtis's  argu- 
ment, he  remarked,  in  his  pithy  Rabelaisian  way,  "  I  never  heard  of  a 
patient's  acquiring  a  taste  for  emetics  by  being  obliged  to  take  one 
now  and  then." 

2  I  recall  attending  public  meetings  in  Boston  at  this  time,  and 

191 


John  Fiske 

The  students  in  the  Law  School  represented  both 
sides  in  this  discussion,  and  as  these  students 
mingled  freely,  in  the  college  halls  and  boarding- 
houses,  with  members  of  the  junior  and  senior 
classes,  the  current  opinions  in  the  Law  School,  as 
well  as  the  wide  public  discussions,  had  free  access 
to  the  undergraduate  mind.  We  shall  soon  see 
from  Fiske's  letters  how  deeply  he  was  impressed 
by  President  Lincoln's  action,  and  how  closely  the 
discussion  we  have  been  considering  was  brought 
home  to  him. 

hearing  Professor  Parker  denounce  President  Lincoln  in  the  severest 
terms, — he  was  not  given  to  moderate  speech,  —  and  if  my  mem- 
ory serves  me  rightly,  the  feeling  against  him  in  Cambridge  was 
so  strong  that  his  friends  were  apprehensive  of  some  expression  of 
public  indignation. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AN  UNDERGRADUATE  AT  HARVARD 
1860-1863 

WE  have  seen  that  Fiske,  just  previous  to  his  en- 
trance examinations  at  Harvard,  was  so  confident 
of  passing  them  that  he  had  engaged  his  rooms 
for  the  ensuing  year.  In  view  of  the  condition  of 
the  college  halls  many  parents  objected  to  placing 
their  sons  in  such  forbidding  surroundings.  Conse- 
quently there  fiad  grown  up  around  the  college  a 
number  of  boarding-houses,  all  under  the  approval 
of  the  faculty,  which,  as  living  places,  were  by  many 
students  preferred  to  the  college  halls.  Of  these 
boarding-houses  none  had  a  better  repute  than  the 
one  kept  by  Miss  C.  Upham  on  the  corner  of  Kirk- 
land  and  Oxford  Streets.  The  house  gave  a  full 
view  of  the  college  yard,  —  Memorial  Hall  and 
Sanders  Theatre  did  not  then  exist,  —  and  it  was 
within  sound  of  the  chapel  bell,  a  very  important 
consideration  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  at  Har- 
vard at  this  time,  as  we  have  already  seen. 

It  was  at  Miss  Upham's  that  Fiske  had  taken 
rooms.  They  were  pleasant  rooms  and  he  found 
much  pleasure  in  getting  settled  in  them,  particu- 
larly in  getting  his  books  and  pictures  in  order. 
From  the  particulars  he  gives,  his  library  must  have 

193 


John  Fiske 

been  the  most  scholarly  student's  library  in  Cam- 
bridge. 

And  thus,  very  happily  domiciled,  on  Monday, 
September  2,  1860,  Fiske  began  his  college  life.  He 
continued  his  letters  to  his  mother  and  to  his  friend 
Roberts,  and  it  is  from  these  letters  mainly  that 
the  following  record  of  his  undergraduate  life  is 
made  up. 

From  what  we  have  seen  of  Fiske's  attainments, 
his  methods  of  study  and  his  ideals  of  scholarship, 
together  with  what  we  have  learned  in  regard  to 
the  academic  course  of  study,  it  is  evident  that  this 
course  did  not  present  sufficient  requirements  to 
give  a  healthy,  varied  activity  to  his  inquiring  mind. 
Had  he  chosen  to  confine  himself  to  the  prescribed 
course  and  to  work  for  honors,  he  could  easily  have 
gone  to  the  head  of  his  class.  The  honors  secured  by 
such  efforts,  however,  appeared  to  him  as  tempo- 
rary —  they  did  not  seem  to  him  worth  the  sacri- 
fice of  better  scholarship  to  be  attained  by  broader 
study  than  was  offered  by  the  college  course.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  deliberately  chose  to  do  the  necessary 
work  for  the  recitations  and  examinations,  and 
to  concentrate  himself  upon  his  favorite  studies  of 
history,  philology,  literature,  science,  and  philoso- 
phy, utilizing,  as  far  as  possible  in  these  studies,  the 
facilities  of  the  college. 

As  his  conception  of  an  undergraduate  life  was 
quite  an  exceptional  one,  it  is  of  interest  to  see  how 
it  was  embodied  in  experience.  This  can  best  be 

194 


Collegiate  Work 

done  by  seeing  his  college  life  grouped  around  cer- 
tain centres  of  interest  with  which  his  mind  was  en- 
gaged during  this  period.  These  centres  of  interest 
were  the  following :  — 

I.  His  collegiate  work,  and  his  class  associa- 
tions. 
1 1 .  His  methods  of  study ;  the  mass'of  his  reading. 

III.  His  college  and  living  expenses;  his  book 
purchases. 

IV.  His  visit  to  Emerson. 
V.  His  literary  work. 

VI.  His  thoughts  by  the  way. 
VII.  He  receives  a  "Public  Admonition,"  with  a 

threatened  expulsion. 

VIII.  The  Civil  War;  its  effect  upon  his  mind. 
IX.  His  engagement  to  Abby  Morgan  Brooks. 

We  will  take  up  these  centres  of  interest  in  the 
above  order. 

/.  His  collegiate  work  and  his  class  associations 
In  regard  to  his  collegiate  work  it  can  be  said 
that  he  did  not  neglect  any  study;  that  he  added 
Italian,  Hebrew,  and  Sanskrit  to  the  language  re- 
quirements ;  that  he  stood  high  in  his  classes  through 
the  three  years;  that  he  creditably  passed  all  ex- 
aminations, and  was  graduated  in  1863,  the  forty- 
seventh  in  his  class.  It  should  be  said  that  his  rank 
would  have  been  near  the  head  had  it  not  been  for 
his  cutting  prayers  and  church  services,  and  some 

195 


John  Fiske 

recitations  and  lectures.  He  failed  of  winning  a 
scholarship  in  his  first,  the  sophomore,  year,  simply 
through  cutting  prayers.  In  fact,  the  only  serious 
dereliction  of  duty  charged  against  him  during  the 
three  years  was  a  neglect  of  religious  services. 

The  excellence  of  his  recitations  and  the  interest 
he  took  in  his  studies  soon  attracted  the  attention 
of  some  members  of  the  faculty,  and  we  find  Pro- 
fessor Child  reporting  "that  the  breadth  of  his 
views  was  perfectly  astonishing."  In  mathematics 
his  proficiency  is  also  noted,  Professor  James  M. 
Peirce  speaking  of  him  "as  a  jewel  of  a  mathe- 
matician" ;  while  President  Pel  ton,  writing  to  Judge 
Curtis,  says  that  "Fiske  is  going  to  be  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  in  his  class;"  in  support  of  his 
opinion  he  quotes  Bates,  the  tutor  in  Latin,  as  say- 
ing that  "  Fiske  was  the  best  scholar  he  ever  had." 

But  the  best  testimony  to  the  high  quality  of  his 
college  work  is  the  fact  that  he  established  cor- 
dial personal  relations  with  several  members  of  the 
faculty  —  relations  that  were  continued  after  his 
graduation,  that  ripened  into  strong  friendships 
which  were  terminated  only  by  death.  Among  these 
may  be  mentioned  his  friendships  with  Professors 
Lowell,  Child,  Goodwin,  Sophocles,  Peirce,  Gurney, 
Wyman,  Asa  Gray,  and  Dr.  Peabody.  From  each  of 
these  professors  he  gathered  much  outside  of  and 
beyond  their  formal  teaching ;  and  in  his  mind  these 
men  stood  in  their  personalities  more  than  in  their 
professorial  relations  for  the  Harvard  College  that 

196 


Collegiate  Work 

he  loved.  Particular  mention  should  be  made  of 
the  friendship  which  was  formed  between  Fiske  and 
Professor  Gurney  during  the  college  period.  The 
letters  bear  witness  to  the  existence  of  a  far  deeper 
feeling  between  them  than  that  of  instructor  and 
pupil.  In  fact,  Professor  Gurney  appears  as  Fidus 
Achates,  and  in  this  relation  we  have  a  reflection  of 
him  both  as  a  scholar  and  a  friend. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Fiske  came  into  any  per- 
sonal relations  with  Professor  Agassiz.  The  reason 
we  can  understand  —  Fiske' s  strong  dissent  from 
Professor  Agassiz 's  theory  of  special  creations  in  the 
organic  world.  This  is  to  be  regretted.  Agassiz  had 
such  a  vast  fund  of  valuable  zoological  knowledge, 
he  was  also  such  an  inspiring  instructor,  and  with  it 
all  was  such  a  lovable  man,  that  Fiske  lost  much  by 
not  establishing  personal  relations  with  him  while 
in  college.  Fiske  was  less  inclined  to  listen  to 
Agassiz  during  his  college  period,  inasmuch  as  both 
Professors  Gray  and  Wyman  were  opponents  of  the 
special  creation  theory  —  they  were  in  fact  advo- 
cates of  the  Darwinian  theory  of  organic  evolution. 
He  did  not  establish  any  cordial  relations  with 
either  Professor  Cooke  or  Professor  Bowen.  He 
regarded  both  as  more  earnest  in  presenting  pre- 
conceived theological  ideas  in  their  respective  de- 
partments than  in  presenting  the  facts  of  modern 
science  freed  from  metaphysical  interpretation.  It 
is  evident  that,  in  a  respectful  way,  he  sometimes 
questioned  their  conclusions.  In  chemistry  and 

197 


John  Fiske 

philosophy,  therefore,  his  marks  were  lower  than  in 
other  studies. 

Among  his  classmates  Fiske  was  generally  liked, 
but  his  reserved,  studious  nature  did  not  invite  to 
elose  intimacy  save  with  a  few.  He  had  a  quiet 
frankness  of  manner  in  greeting  his  friends  that  was 
inviting;  but  he  instinctively  shrank  from  every- 
thing like  boisterous  conviviality.  There  was  no 
suggestion  of  swagger  or  pretence  about  him,  and 
his  only  dissipation  was  a  pipe  and  a  mug  of  beer. 
His  studious  habits,  his  excellent  recitations,  and 
ready  command  of  his  wide  and  varied  knowledge, 
together  with  the  impressions  given  by  his  library, 
soon  made  him  a  marked  member  of  his  class.  It 
was  not  long  before  the  first  scholar  in  the  class  said 
to  him,  "Do  you  know,  Fiske,  that  your  transla- 
tions in  Greek  are  the  astonishment  of  the  class?" 
In  mathematics  his  proficiency  was  no  less  marked. 
He  soon  went  to  the  head  of  the  class  in  this  study, 
and  the  class  feeling  was  reflected  in  the  remark  of 
a  classmate  who,  on  trying  on  Fiske's  hat,  said, 
"Tell  you  what,  fellows,  the  reason  Fiske  has  got 
such  a  big  head  is  because  he  is  such  a  thundering 
mathematician. "  From  the  records  we  find  that 
his  marks  from  the  first  were  very  high,  nearly  per- 
fect, save  in  chemistry  —  and  chemistry  was  a 
study  he  particularly  liked.  From  his  letters  it  ap- 
pears that  he  regarded  his  college  studies  as  mere 
play. 

One  or  two  incidents  are  worth  noting  by  the  way, 

198 


Collegiate  Work 

as  reflecting  Fiske's  ready  command  of  his  knowl- 
edge, as  well  as  the  prevailing  undergraduate  ideas 
of  scholarship.  At  table  a  classmate  put  to  him  the 
following  questions :  The  situation  of  Potidaea,  Am- 
phipolis,  and  Delium;  the  years  of  Socrates's  birth 
and  death;  the  circumstances  of  the  battle  of  Argi- 
nusae.  Fiske  answered  clearly  right  out  of  hand, 
whereupon  another  classmate  said,  "What  in  God's 
name,  Fiske,  did  you  expect  to  learn  by  coming  to 
college?"  And  the  following  is  reported  of  a  class- 
mate who  in  subsequent  years  attained  high  profes- 
sional honors.  Fiske  writes:  "The  other  day,  when 

reading  over  his  Whateley's  Rhetoric  cried 

out  to  me,  '  Fiske,  what  the  devil  is  an  enthy- 
meme?'  'Why/  said  I,  'it  is  a  syllogism  with  the 
major  premise  suppressed/  'Well,  what  in  hell  is 
a  syllogism? '  was  the  hyperastonished  reply.  Great 
Zeus!  I  thought  I  should  split!  There  's  a  speci- 
men of  Harvard  scholarship ! " 

Fiske's  comments  upon  the  student  life  displayed 
about  him  are  many.  His  standard  of  judgment  of 
his  fellow  students  was  their  scholarship  and  their 
love  of  study.  He  writes:  "Among  the  students 
here  scholarship  is  held  in  disrepute";  "To  study 
closely  is  considered  disgraceful";  "The  present 
senior  class,  having  studied  somewhat  more  faith- 
fully than  others,  is  called  'scrubby'";  "A  good 
recitation  is  called  a  'squirt,'  and  some  fellows  have 
undertaken  to  call  me  'Squirty,'  a  name  which  has 
been  fastened  on  to  one  of  the  mathematical  tutors 

199 


John  Fiske 

on  account  of  his  superior  scholarship."  He  also 
gives  this  incident:  "  A  poll  student  told  me  to-day 
that  twenty  pipes  of  tobacco  a  day  would  not  in- 
jure a  man  as  much  as  six  hours  of  study.  I  asked 
that  ignoramus  if  he  considered  six  hours  of  study 
much?  He  replied  he  could  n't  say  as  he  never 
studied  over  three. " 

How  instinctively  he  made  a  fellow-feeling  for 
scholarship  the  condition  of  intimacy  with  fellow- 
students  is  shown  by  a  passage  in  a  letter  to  his 
mother  written  about  a  fortnight  after  his  entrance. 
The  passage  also  shows  his  fine  democratic  feeling  — 
that  he  was  no  respecter  of  persons,  save  in  their 
love  for  knowledge.  He  writes :  — 

"I  have  found  a  nice  man  here  named  Ethridge, 
about  27  or  28  years  old;  entered  Soph,  with  me. 
He  boards  with  Dr.  Gray  at  the  entrance  to  the 
Botanic  Gardens,  and  rooms  in  the  Gardener's 
house.  He  is  a  plain,  practical,  common-sense  man; 
perfectly  simple,  very  diligent  —  quite  a  fun-lover 
withal.  I  like  him  on  the  whole  very  much.  He  is  a 
good  scholar  but  poor;  speaks  Spanish  and  Dutch; 
reads  German  and  French.  I  went  up  to  see  him 
the  other  day  and  he  showed  me  about  the  Gardens. 
I  wish  you  could  see  them.  Ethridge  has  studied 
Botany  a  great  deal,  and  has  a  great  love  for  it;  is 
a  real  old  Darwin  man.  He  has  been  down  to  see 


me  once." 


In  the  college  societies  Fiske  does  not  appear  to 
have  taken  much  interest.  He  was  elected  to  the 
O.K.  Society,  but  the  letters  contain  only  a  brief 

200 


Student  Life 

reference  to  this  society  and  no  reference  to  the 
other  societies. 

Athletics  were  not  at  this  time  regarded  as  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  a  college  education.  Previous 
to  1860  football  played  in  a  ladylike  sort  of  way 
was  permitted;  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  college 
year  1 860-61  — Fiske's  sophomore  year —  the  fac- 
ulty prohibited  it.  This  caused  much  grief  among 
Harvard's  young  knights  of  learning,  and  the  let- 
ters give  full  particulars  of  how,  on  the  evening  of 
September  3,  1860,  the  class  of  1863  gave  expression 
to  their  feelings  at  the  want  of  sympathy  on  the 
part  of  the  faculty  with  the  ideals  of  football  educa- 
tion. It  appears  that  the  class  buried  their  Idol  with 
ceremonial  rites  in  the  classic  Delta,  the  field  of  many 
a  football  contest.  A  procession  numbering  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  was  formed  with  officers,  a 
chaplain,  a  coffin,  pall-bearers,  grave-diggers,  and 
with  muffled  drums.  All  were  dressed  in  mourning 
and  the  main  body  bore  torches.  They  marched 
through  the  principal  streets  about  the  college  and 
came  to  the  Delta.  Here  a  grave  was  dug.  Then  a 
funeral  oration  was  delivered,  and,  as  the  coffin  was 
lowered  into  the  grave,  the  following  dirge  was 
sung  to  the  tune  of  "  Auld  Lang  Syne"  :  — 


THE  DIRGE 

Ah !  woe  betide  the  luckless  time 
When  manly  sports  decay, 

And  foot-ball,  stigmatized  as  crime, 
Must  sadly  pass  away. 

201 


John  Fiske 


Chorus  —  Shall  Sixty-three  submit  to  see 

Such  cruel  murder  done, 
And  not  proclaim  the  deed  of  shame? 
No:  let 's  unite  as  one. 

O,  hapless  ball,  you  little  knew, 

When,  last  upon  the  air, 
You  lightly  o'er  the  Delta  flew, 

Your  grave  was  measured  there. 

Chorus  —  But  Sixty-three  will  never  see 

Your  noble  spirit  fly 
And  not  unite  in  funeral  rite, 
And  swell  your  Dirge's  cry. 

Beneath  this  sod,  we  lay  you  down, 

This  scene  of  glorious  fight; 
With  dismal  groans  and  yells  we  '11  drown 

Your  mournful  burial  rite. 

Chorus  —  For  Sixty-three  will  never  see 

Such  cruel  murder  done, 
And  not  proclaim  the  deed  of  shame:  — 
No!  let 's  unite  as  one. 

This  important  event  occurred  on  the  second  day 
of  Fiske's  undergraduate  life,  and  he  became  an  in- 
terested participator  in  the  ceremonies.1 

Notwithstanding  Fiske's  intellectual  tastes  and 
studious  habits  he  was  by  no  means  wanting  in  the 

1  College  boating,  while  practised  to  quite  an  extent  on  the 
Charles  River,  had  not  developed  into  anything  like  its  present 
status  in  education.  Not  unfrequently  the  class  clubs  entered  the 
holiday  regattas  of  the  City  of  Boston.  The  boats  of  those  days  were 
quite  different  in  construction  from  the  racing-boats  of  to-day.  Pres- 
ident Eliot  tells  us  they  served  for  transportation  as  well  as  sport;  and 
were  so  constructed  that  while  they  could  conveniently  take  nine  men 
into  Boston,  they  could  not  with  safety  carry  out  more  than  six. 

Fiske  took  no  interest  in  football  or  boating.  During  his  sopho- 
more year  he  was  quite  faithful  to  daily  exercise  in  the  Gymnasium ; 
but  as  his  intellectual  interests  broadened  in  his  junior  and  senior 
years  his  physical  exercises  gradually  diminished. 

202 


Student  Life 

fine  trait  of  comradeship,  which  in  college  life  is 
manifested  in  class  feeling.  A  memorable  incident 
occurred  in  the  first  term  of  his  sophomore  year, 
which  put  his  class  allegiance  to  a  severe  test,  a 
test  which  proved  that  it  was  of  fine  quality. 

The  incident  grew  out  of  an  attempt  at  "  hazing" 
by  some  members  of  his  own  class.  It  appears  that 
eight  sophomores  took  two  freshmen  to  one  of  their 
rooms  to  introduce  them  to  some  of  the  unauthor- 
ized ceremonial  mysteries  attending  collegiate  edu- 
cation at  Harvard.  Another  freshman  ran  and  told 
the  faculty — who  were  holding  a  weekly  meeting  — 
of  the  highly  objectionable  educational  experiment 
that  was  under  way.  The  faculty,  or  some  of  the 
members,  led  by  the  President,  pounced  upon  the 
assembled  sophomores  and  found  them  with  the  two 
freshmen  imprisoned  in  a  closet.  The  next  morning 
the  eight  sophomores  were  suspended.  So  far,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  sophomore  class,  the  faculty  were 
justified  in  their  action.  But  the  faculty  went  fur- 
ther, and  forbade  any  public  demonstration  by  the 
class  in  bidding  the  suspended  men  good-bye.  This 
edict  seemed  to  the  class  unjust  and  uncalled  for; 
and  as  the  suspended  members  were  all  very  popu- 
lar, the  class  decided  to  disregard  the  faculty  edict, 
and  as  a  whole  to  express  their  regard  for  the  sus- 
pended members.  This  they  did  by  drawing  them 
in  an  open  carriage  to  the  Boston  line.  There,  with 
much  display  of  affection,  they  bade  the  suspended 
men  good-bye  and  marched  back  past  the  Presi- 

203 


John  Fiske 

dent's  house  to  the  college  yard  —  Bowditch,  the 
first  scholar  of  the  class,  at  their  head. 

In  regard  to  this  demonstration  Fiske  writes:  — 

"  Now  this  was  only  intended  as  an  expression  of 
sympathy  with  those  who  were  sent  away,  called 
forth  by  their  many  excellent  traits  of  character  and 
their  fine  scholarship.  Had  it  been  some  fellows, 
there  would  have  been  no  such  demonstration ;  but 
these  were  the  cream  of  the  class,  respected  by  all 
and  none  of  them  'fast.'  No  one  disputed  the  jus- 
tice of  the  sentence;  or  intended  this  as  an  insult  to 
the  Faculty.  If  such  had  been  its  aim  I  never  should 
have  joined  it." 

And  in  regard  to  what  followed  he  writes:  — 

"Now  I  think  the  Faculty  have  begun  to  act 
shamefully.  Bowditch  was  'summoned.'  He  is  the 
First  Scholar,  a  grandson  of  the  great  geometer  and 
a  perfect  gentleman.  He  made  a  speech  to  the 
Faculty,  perfectly  respectful  and  conciliatory  in  its 
tendency.  It  met  with  the  manifest  approval  of 
some  of  the  Faculty.  But  the  President  spoke  up: 
'  Mr.  Bowditch,  you  have  disgraced  your  illustrious 
name;  you  are  no  gentleman,  sir,  and  all  unworthy 
the  name  of  scholar.'  'Mr.  President,'  said  Bow- 
ditch,  '  I  came  here  to  render  an  account  of  yester- 
day's proceedings;  not  to  be  insulted." 

The  result  was  that  Bowditch  was  suspended  — 
a  result  brought  about  wholly  by  the  efforts  of 
President  Felton  and  secured  by  his  own  vote  — 
the  vote  of  the  faculty  being  ten  for,  and  nine 
against  his  suspension. 

204 


Student  Life 

The  verdict  created  intense  feeling  throughout 
all  the  classes.  The  sophomore  class  petitioned 
the  faculty  in  a  body  asking  that  Bowditch  be 
recalled  or  that  the  whole  class  be  suspended  — 
alleging  that  the  whole  class  were  equally  guilty 
with  him. 

In  time  the  excitement  passed  by  and  all  the  sus- 
pended members  returned  to  the  class.  Fiske  never 
regretted  his  action  in  the  matter.  We  shall  soon 
see  that  not  long  after,  Fiske  himself  gave  President 
Felton  a  still  more  memorable  occasion  for  display- 
ing his  constitutional  narrow-mindedness. 

Early  in  his  senior  year  Fiske  was  elected  asso- 
ciate editor  of  the  "Harvard  Magazine "  —  a  task 
which  was  a  great  bore  to  him,  but  one  which  he 
cheerfully  undertook  as  an  obligation  to  his  class. 
During  his  editorship,  he  contributed  the  following 
articles  to  the  " Magazine":  "Ye  Vital  Principle/' 
"A  Very  Old  Tale,"  "Diatribe  on  Archbishop 
Whateley,"  "The  Life  and  Teachings  of  Gotama 
Buddha." 

There  were  several  Emerson  men  and  Theodore 
Parker  men  in  the  various  classes,  and  there  is  evi- 
dence of  much  religious  discussion  among  the  stu- 
dents growing  out  of  Dr.  Huntington's  resignation 
and  the  opening-up  of  the  Darwinian  question.  We 
have  glimpses  of  students  coming  from  Agassiz's 
lectures  enthusiastic  over  his  "triumphant  vindica- 
tion of  special  creations"  and  of  Fiske' s  quietly  tak- 

205 


John  Fiske 

ing  Agassiz's  own  premises  and  bringing  the  argu- 
ment right  around  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of  Devel- 
opment or  Evolution.  In  short,  at  the  opening  of 
Fiske' s  junior  year,  his  fine  library  and  his  command 
of  scientific  knowledge  gave  him  the  reputation 
throughout  the  college  of  being  a  well-equipped 
Darwinian,  and  of  holding  philosophic  views  of  a 
Positivist  character  —  views  that  were  at  least  open 
to  suspicion.  The  undergraduate  dissensions  grow- 
ing out  of  the  Civil  War  will  presently  be  considered 
by  themselves. 

In  Fiske's  life,  as  we  are  to  see  it  unfold  after 
college,  we  shall  have  frequent  occasion  to  note  his 
great  interest  in  music  —  that  music  was,  in  fact, 
his  chief  means  of  diversion,  and  that  he  became, 
principally  through  self-study,  proficient  both  as  a 
composer  and  as  a  performer.  During  his  college 
life,  however,  this  deep  harmonic  element  in  his 
nature  was  wholly  untouched  by  anything  in  the 
academic  course.  It  was  a  matter  of  profound  regret 
that  his  college  course  had  no  provisions  whatever 
for  making  students  acquainted  with  the  artistic 
principles  governing  the  higher  forms  of  musical 
expression.  His  deprivation  in  this  respect  was  par- 
tially remedied,  however,  by  his  acquaintance  with 
Professor  John  K.  Paine,  which  began  at  the  time 
of  Fiske's  marriage  in  1864,  and  which  ripened  into 
a  lifelong  brotherly  friendship  of  the  most  ennobling 
kind.  To  know  Professor  Paine  intimately  was  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  the  ripest  musical  culture.  We 

206 


Methods  of  Study 

are  to  see  much  of  the  effect  of  this  fine  friendship  in 
the  years  to  come. 

//.  His  methods  of  study:  the  mass  of  his  reading 
From  his  early  boyhood  we  have  had  frequent 
occasions  to  note  Fiske's  great  fondness  for  books 
and  his  passionate  love  of  study.  To  read  and  to 
study  were  to  him  the  most  delightful  of  occupa- 
tions and  especially  if  we  include  composition  as  re- 
lated to  them  or  as  their  complement.  The  letters 
are  full  of  the  particulars  of  his  devotions.  Twelve 
hours  a  day,  except  Saturdays  and  Sundays,  was  his 
regular  allowance  for  reading  and  study;  and  this 
generous  allowance  was  often  extended  to  sixteen 
hours  or  more  when  specially  interested  in  any  sub- 
ject. He  had  a  very  clear  method  in  his  reading- 
study,  and  various  hours  were  apportioned  to  speci- 
fic subjects.  Throughout  the  college  period  he  was 
seeking  the  fundamental  truths  of  science  and  phil- 
osophy, and  the  breadth  or  catholicity  of  his  read- 
ing is  a  noteworthy  characteristic,  particularly  when 
it  is  considered  that  this  whole  line  of  study-read- 
ing was  self-imposed  and  self -directed.  According 
to  his  usual  methodical  custom  he  kept  an  accu- 
rate account  of  his  reading,  and  the  mere  mass  of 
it  was  something  extraordinary.  During  the  three 
college  years  he  read  two  hundred  and  thirty-three 
volumes  containing  nearly  sixty  thousand  pages. 
Most  of  these  works  were  on  subjects  requiring  the 
deepest  thought.  Many  were  in  foreign  languages. 

207 


John  Fiske 

All  were  thoughtfully  read  as  the  extracts  from 
the  letters  we  shall  give  abundantly  show,  and 
as  the  literary  work  of  subsequent  years  clearly 
proves.1 

His  mother  and  Roberts  were  insistent  upon  his 
keeping  up  a  regular  course  of  physical  exercise.  He 
did  play  at  exercise  in  the  kind  of  gymnasium  that 
was  then  attached  to  the  college;  but  this  exercise 
was  not  pursued  with  just  the  ardor  he  bestowed 
upon  his  favorite  authors — Grote,  Gibbon,  Donald- 
son, Humboldt,  Voltaire,  Mill,  Mackay,  Darwin, 
Spencer,  Dickens,  Scott,  Goethe,  and  many  others. 

///.  His  college  and  living  expenses:  his  book  purchases 
A  student's  college  expenses  are  a  very  clear 
revealer  of  both  his  inner  and  his  outer  life.  In 
Fiske' s  letters  to  his  mother  we  have  quite  full  de- 
tails of  his  receipts  and  expenditures,  so  that  we 
have  in  this  account  a  pretty  complete  voucher,  as 
it  were,  for  the  general  uprightness  of  his  under- 
graduate conduct.  From  this  evidence  it  appears 
that  the  whole  cost  of  his  college  education  did 
not  exceed  six  hundred  dollars  a  year.  This  in- 
cluded his  living  expenses.  There  was  absolutely 
nothing  spent  in  dissipation  of  any  sort.  He  gave 
his  mother  a  pledge  at  the  beginning  that  he  would 

1  The  rapidity  with  which  he  read  was  indeed  remarkable.  The 
letters  make  frequent  mention  of  his  reading  from  two  hundred  and 
fifty  to  three  hundred  pages  per  day  in  addition  to  his  studies.  As 
an  instance,  in  one  place  he  says:  "  I  began  Miiller's  Dorians  to-night, 
and  read  ninety  pages  in  about  two  hours." 

208 


College  Expenses 

not  drink  wine  or  spirituous  liquors  and  this  pledge 
he  faithfully  kept.  As  has  been  said  already,  the 
extent  of  his  dissipation  was  a  pipe  and  a  mug  of 
beer.  His  aversion  to  dissolute  conduct,  which  is  a 
marked  characteristic  of  the  letters,  was  no  less 
marked  in  his  intercourse  with  fellow  students. 
Yet  such  is  the  tendency  of  the  shallow  mind  to 
think  evil  and  to  see  evil  even  where  it  does  not  exist, 
Fiske  the  student,  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
a  reader  of  Voltaire,  Emerson,  Theodore  Parker, 
Buckle,  Darwin,  and  other  liberal  thinkers,  and  that 
he  sometimes  cut  prayers,  had  gained,  at  the  open- 
ing of  his  junior  year,  the  reputation  in  certain 
quarters  of  being  a  very  objectionable  young  man. 
This  opinion  was  undoubtedly  heightened  by  reports 
of  his  wide  knowledge  and  his  liberal  way  of  think- 
ing. Fiske  became  conscious  of  this  impeachment 
of  his  moral  character,  and  in  a  letter  to  Roberts  he 
says:  "  It  is  quite  amusing  to  see  that  I  have  got  the 
reputation  of  being  a  dreadful  hard  fellow,  while 
other  students  who  drink,  gamble,  and  go  about 
with  women  are  pronounced  'only  a  little  fast.'  It 
shows  the  prevalence  of  superstition. " 

With  the  full  particulars  that  we  have  of  the 
unfolding  of  Fiske's  life  to  the  full  maturity  of  his 
intellectual  powers,  it  can  be  positively  asserted 
that  biographical  literature  presents  no  instance  of 
a  mind  unfolding  to  high  ideas  and  ideals  with  a 
sweeter,  purer  life  than  his. 

And  yet,  in  the  mind  of  his  mother,  kind  mother 

209 


John  Fiske 

that  she  was,  he  had  a  great  extravagance  —  a 
propensity  to  buy  books.  We  have  seen  that  from 
his  early  boyhood  his  love  of  books,  and  his  pride 
in  possessing  books,  was  a  dominant  passion  in  his 
life  —  in  fact,  that  books  were  his  chief  companions. 
The  amount  of  his  "book  extravagance"  during 
his  college  period  does  not  appear  to  have  greatly 
exceeded  one  hundred  dollars  —  a  college  extrava- 
gance that  most  parents  would  gladly  encourage  in 
their  sons.  Yet,  as  in  the  first  instance  the  pur- 
chases were  books  not  in  any  way  required  in  his 
collegiate  studies  and  as  some  of  them  related  to 
subjects  regarding  which  his  mother  was  not  in  full 
sympathy  with  him,  she  raised  decided  objection  to 
what  she  felt  was  an  impulsive  act  on  his  part.  Let 
us  not  criticise  her  action.  If  she  could  not  see  the 
propriety  of  his  purchases  in  this  instance,  her  ob- 
jection served  to  bring  into  clear  light  certain  traits 
in  his  character  which,  if  she  could  have  seen  them  in 
their  relations,  would  have  appeared  of  far  greater 
value  than  the  cost  of  the  books.  The  instance  is 
worth  giving.  No  sooner  was  Fiske  settled  in  Cam- 
bridge, in  June,  1860,  for  his  examinations  than  he 
began  to  plan  his  future  lines  of  study  in  science, 
philology,  history,  and  philosophy  in  addition  to  his 
collegiate  work.  His  letters  to  Roberts  are  quite 
full  of  the  details  of  what  was  gestating  in  his  mind. 
Falling  in  with  one  of  Quaritch's  catalogues  of  rare 
books  for  sale,  he  ordered  through  Mr.  Sever,  the 
Harvard  book-seller  of  that  day,  the  following 

210 


Visit  to  Emerson 

works:  Donaldson's  "  Varronianus  "  and  his  Greek 
Grammar,  Wilson's  Sanskrit  Grammar,  Bleek's 
Persian  Grammar,  Stewart's  Arabic  Grammar, 
Mill's  "Logic,"  von  Bohlen's  "Genesis,"  Sainte- 
Hilaire's  "Histoire  des  Anomalies  de  1'Organisa- 
tion."  When  the  bill  came  in  September  it  amountd 
to  forty-five  dollars  and  his  mother  gave  him  a 
severe  chiding  for  what  she  thought  was  a  wholly 
needless  purchase.  Fiske  patiently  and  dutifully 
pointed  out  how  essential  the  books  were  to  the  lines 
of  thought  he  was  pursuing  and  the  help  they  would 
be  in  giving  him  enlarged  views  in  his  college 
studies.  He  took  his  mother's  chiding  much  to 
heart,  and  for  months  afterwards  the  letters  show 
little  economies,  that  he  might  recoup  towards  the 
bill.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  propose  giving  up  his 
dearly  prized  Thanksgiving  visit  to  his  grandmother, 
that  "money  might  be  saved  towards  that  dreadful 
book-bill."  * 

IV.  His  visit  to  Emerson 

One  incident  which  occurred  at  the  beginning  of 
Fiske's  college  life,  and  was  wholly  unconnected  with 
his  college  course,  deserves  a  setting  by  itself,  and 
should  be  given  in  his  own  words:  this  is  his  visit  to 
Emerson.  How  greatly  in  the  development  of  his 
own  thought  Fiske  was  influenced  by  Emerson  has 
hardly  been  noted.  When  we  come  to  the  considera- 
tion of  Fiske's  mind  at  its  maturity  and  with  the 
evidences  then  at  hand,  we  shall  see  that  he  re- 

211 


John  Fiske 

garded  Emerson  as  the  true  protagonist  of  Evolu- 
tion; that  he  clearly  "insighted"  it  as  the  Divine 
order  of  creation  before  science  had  laid  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  the  doctrine  could  be  established. 
We  shall  also  see  that  Fiske  was  a  free  partaker  of 
the  Emersonian  philosophy  as  a  source  of  noble 
thinking  pure  and  undefiled.1 

Early  in  his  sophomore  experience  Fiske  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Edward  Dorr  McCarthy,  a  very 
brilliant  but  erratic  student,  quite  radical  in  his 
general  views  and  acquainted  with  the  leading  radi- 
cal men  of  the  time.  McCarthy  was  somewhat  ac- 
quainted with  Emerson,  and  about  the  middle  of 
September  he  asked  Fiske  to  join  him  in  an  excur- 
sion to  Concord  for  the  purpose  of  calling  on  Emer- 
son. Fiske  gladly  accepted  the  invitation  and  the 
next  day  he  gave  an  account  of  the  visit,  to  his 
mother  and  to  Roberts.  The  account  of  the  visit  is 
essentially  the  same  in  both  letters.  The  following 
is  the  account  given  in  the  letter  to  his  mother 
with  a  few  words  interpolated  from  his  letter  to 
Roberts:  — 

CAMBRIDGE,  Septr.  i6th,  1860. 
My  dear  Mother :  — 

Yesterday  I  shall  never  forget.  McCarthy  was 
going  to  drive  up  to  Concord  to  see  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  with  whom  he  is  quite  well  acquainted, 
and  to  try  to  get  a  school  for  the  winter.  He  came 
and  got  me  to  go  too.  We  got  to  Mr.  Emerson's 

1  See  vol.  n,  chap,  xxxvi.  See  also  vol.  ii,  chap,  xxvii,  Emerson 
and  Herbert  Spencer. 

212 


Visit  to  Emerson 

about  7  o'clock.  The  family  were  just  through  tea 
and  Mr.  Emerson  was  out.  He  soon  came  in  and 
McCarthy  introduced  me.  He  welcomed  us  warmly 
and  said  he  was  going  out  to  supper  alone  and  we 
had  better  come  out  and  take  tea  with  him.  He  had 
just  that  winning,  Judge  Curtis  like  way  which 
compels  assent,  and  so  we  went  out  and  took  tea 
with  him,  while  Mrs.  Emerson  and  his  daughters 
sat  sewing  at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  He  talked 
with  us  about  all  sorts  of  things:  with  McCarthy 
about  Carlyle  and  other  literary  men ;  and  with  me 
about  Bichat,  Voltaire  and  Buckle.  He  says  that 
Buckle  is  the  master  mind  of  the  age;  that  Voltaire 
deserves  all  the  praise  that  Buckle  has  given  him,  if 
not  more.  About  Bichat  he  ran  into  raptures.1  I 
did  n't  expect  to  find  him  booked  on  science,  but  I 
find  him  tremendously  so.  I  was  astonished  not  only 
at  his  learning  but  also  by  his  wisdom  and  his  good- 
ness. I  thought  him  the  greatest  man  I  ever  saw. 

But  most  of  all  he  liked  to  talk  about  Carlyle.  He 
showed  us  a  daguerreotype  which  Carlyle  had  given 
him  when  he  last  saw  him.  He  told  anecdotes  about 
Carlyle  some  of  which  were  amusing.  He  said  that 
Theodore  Parker  went  to  see  Carlyle  one  Sunday 
evening,  and  found  him  alone  over  a  great  bowl  of 
whiskey  punch  ladling  it  into  his  mouth  with  a 
tablespoon.  "Why,  Tom,"  said  Parker,  "what  on 
earth  are  you  doing?"  Carlyle's  face  was  radiant. 
"Why,  I  take  a  whole  bowl  of  whiskey  punch  every 
Sunday  night,  Theodore,  don't  you?"  said  the  old 
Scot. 

We  talked  some  time.  Emerson's  voice  is  a  very 

1  Marie  Francois  Xavier  Bichat,  a  celebrated  French  physiologist 
and  anatomist,  1771-1802. 

213 


John  Fiske 

deep  bass.  I  felt  as  much  at  my  ease  as  I  would 
with  an  old  acquaintance;  there  was  something  so 
charming,  so  simple  and  unaffected  and  exquisitely- 
bred  about  Emerson. 

At  last  we  got  up  to  go,  and  Emerson  said  he 
was  very  glad  indeed  to  have  seen  us,  and  hoped 
we  would  come  and  see  him  again.  Of  all  the  men 
I  ever  saw,  none  can  be  compared  with  him  for 
depth,  for  scholarship,  and  for  attractiveness,  —  at 
least  so  I  think. 

With  this  expression  of  youthful  enthusiasm  over 
his  first  meeting  with  Emerson,  it  is  in  place  to  note 
that  in  the  years  to  come,  we  are  to  observe  that  in 
Fiske' s  personal  contact  with  Nature  in  her  quiet 
moods  or  in  her  grand  and  sublime  aspects,  with  the 
world's  masterpieces  of  literature,  sculpture,  paint- 
ing, music,  and  architecture,  as  well  as  with  other 
of  the  most  eminent  thinkers  of  his  time,  his  own 
thought  instinctively  strikes  true  as  to  what  is  en- 
nobling in  nature,  in  art,  and  in  human  character. 

V.  His  literary  work 

At  the  close  of  Fiske's  sophomore  year,  July,  1 861 , 
the  fur  or  scribendi  was  full  upon  him.  The  second 
volume  of  Buckle's  "History  of  Civilization  in 
England"  had  just  been  published,  and  the  reading 
of  it  brought  back  a  recollection  of  his  reading  of 
the  first  volume  two  years  before  and  the  effect 
produced  upon  his  mind.  Since  then  he  had  reread 
the  volume  twice,  and  had  weighed  well  its  general 
argument  in  connection  with  a  wide  course  of  his- 

214 


Literary  Work 

torical  and  scientific  reading,  inspired  by  his  ac- 
ceptance of  Spencer's  theory  of  Evolution.  Wider 
knowledge  had  led  him  to  see  serious  defects  in 
Buckle's  contentions;  and  much  as  he  admired 
some  portions  of  Buckle's  general  argument,  there 
were  some  points  he  desired  to  bring  under  a  critical 
review.  The  publication  of  the  second  volume  in- 
vited him  to  the  task.  Rather  a  heroic  courage,  this, 
entering  the  lists  against  one  of  the  master  minds  of 
the  age,  by  a  youth  who  had  only  just  turned  his 
nineteenth  year. 

Yet  was  Fiske  nothing  daunted.  The  letters 
during  the  summer  vacation  of  1861  reveal  him 
as  in  active  preparation,  reviewing  his  authorities. 
The  latter  part  of  September  we  see  him  in  the 
midst  of  composition.  On  the  I4th  of  October, — let 
us  mark  the  date,  —  the  article  is  finished.  Before 
sending  it  to  the  "National  Quarterly  Review," 
where  it  was  published  in  the  number  of  that  jour- 
nal for  December,  1861,  he  submitted  it  to  his 
friend  Professor  Gurney,  who  was  warm  in  its 
praise,  assuring  Fiske  that  "it  was  the  ablest,  most 
just,  and  philosophical  review  of  Buckle  that  had 
been  written." 

Reading  this  article  to-day  we  note  the  easy  grace 
with  which,  in  opening,  he  surveys  the  phenomena 
of  political  and  social  development  as  presented  by 
eminent  thinkers  previous  to  Buckle;  then  we  note 
the  perfect  fairness  with  which  he  states  Buckle's 
contentions,  and  the  frankness  with  which  he 

215 


John  Fiske 

assents  to  some  of  them.  The  significant  feature  of 
the  article,  however,  is  his  firm  grappling  with 
Buckle's  main  contention,  "Intellect  vs.  morals  in 
the  development  of  civilization,"  in  which  Buckle 
substantially  affirms  that  all  progress  is  owing  to  the 
growth  or  expansion  of  man's  intellectual  nature, 
while  his  moral  nature  remains  stationary.  Fiske 
takes  a  square  issue  with  Buckle  on  this  point;  and, 
basing  his  argument  on  the  law  of  Evolution,  he 
marshals  his  wide  knowledge  of  both  science  and 
history  with  great  skill ;  and,  to  use  his  own  words, 
he  "bangs  Buckle's  argument  all  to  pieces." 

Throughout  the  article  Fiske's  respect  for  Buckle 
as  a  thinker  of  rare  independence  and  force  is  appar- 
ent, and  he  closes  with  this  fine  tribute :  — 

"With  respect  to  Mr.  Buckle's  work,  an  unprej- 
udiced mind  can  have  but  one  opinion.  It  is  cal- 
culated to  awaken  independent  thought,  and  to 
diffuse  a  spirit  of  scientific  inquiry.  Written  in  an 
easy  and  elegant  style,  it  will  be  read  with  pleasure 
by  many  who  would  not  otherwise  have  the  patience 
to  go  through  the  subjects  of  which  it  treats.  Thus, 
grand  and  startling  in  its  views,  impressive  and 
charming  in  its  eloquence,  it  cannot  fail  to  arouse 
many  a  slumbering  mind  to  intellectual  effort.  Such 
has  its  tendency  already  been,  and  such  will  it  con- 
tinue to  be.  ...  Whatever  may  be  thought  about 
the  correctness  or  incorrectness  of  Mr.  Buckle's 
opinions,  the  world  cannot  be  long  in  coming  to 
the  conclusion  that  his  'History  of  Civilization  in 
England'  is  a  great  and  noble  book,  written  by  a 
great  and  noble  man." 

216 


Literary  Work 

This  article  was  fully  abreast  with  the  Evolu- 
tionary thought  of  the  time.  Since  his  first  reading 
of  Buckle  in  1859,  Fiske  had  made  a  careful  study 
of  the  philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte,  in  the  light 
of  Mill  and  of  Lewes;  and  he  had  also  followed 
Spencer,  so  far  as  Spencer  had  developed  his  theory 
of  Evolution.  All  this  line  of  philosophic  thinking 
based  on  science  was  known  as  "  Positivism/'  and 
was  supposed  to  reflect  the  philosophic  vagaries  of 
Comte.  We  shall  see  later  the  difficulties  both 
Spencer  and  Fiske  had  in  freeing  the  doctrine  of 
Evolution  from  any  implied  affiliations  with  the 
Positive  Philosophy  of  Comte.  This  article  bears 
evidence  of  Fiske's  study  of  Comte,  but  it  has  none 
of  the  vagaries  of  the  latter.  Nor  has  it  any  marks 
of  juvenility.  The  argument  is  clear,  compact,  and 
logical  in  its  arrangement,  while  the  style  is  re- 
markably simple  and  easy  in  its  flow.  There  is  no 
suggestion  of  pedantry  in  it;  no  attempt  at  fine 
writing.  In  short,  the  article  has  all  the  marks  of 
a  skilled,  practised  debater.  As  such  it  at  once  ap- 
pealed to  Professor  E.  L.  Youmans,  the  champion 
in  this  country  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  and 
was  by  him  sent  to  Spencer,  as  evidence  that  the 
light  of  Spencer's  philosophy  was  breaking  in 
America.  We  shall  see  later  that  both  Spencer  and 
Lewes  were  desirous  of  knowing  who  wrote  the 
article. 

Fiske's  next  literary  effort  was  not  until  near 
the  close  of  his  senior  year.  By  this  time  he  was 

217 


John  Fiske 

pretty  thoroughly  grounded  in  the  theory  of  Evolu- 
tion. Spencer  had  formulated  a  very  substantial 
philosophic  basis  for  the  theory  in  his  immortal 
work  "  First  Principles,"  and  it  remained  for  the 
specialists  in  the  various  departments  of  science  to 
gather  impartially  the  facts  from  the  two  worlds 
of  objective  and  subjective  phenomena  for  collation 
and  integration  under  this  theory.  What  a  new 
light  was  thrown  upon,  what  a  new  impulse  was 
given  to,  all  branches  of  scientific  inquiry  by  the 
promulgation  of  this  theory  is  a  story  which  belongs 
to  the  history  of  science  to  tell.  Philology,  as  soon 
as  scholars  began  to  study  language  as  a  natural 
growth  and  not  as  a  manufactured  product,  as  soon 
as  they  had  begun  to  see  that  its  origin  and  develop- 
ment were  largely  conditioned  by  objective  sur- 
roundings, took  on  a  new  character.  It  could  no 
longer  be  regarded  as  a  metaphysical  study  with  no 
rational  raison  d'etre  back  of  it.  Rather,  it  was  seen 
to  be  a  subject  broadly  open  to  scientific  observa- 
tion, and  that  it  was  related  to  other  branches  of 
science  at  many  points.  The  middle  period  of  the 
last  century  saw  much  stirring  of  philological 
thought  in  the  direction  of  its  scientific  character 
and  also  of  its  scientific  relativity.  Fiske,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  his  boyhood  days  was  deeply  interested  in 
philological  studies;  and  we  have  had  occasion  to 
note  his  quick  appreciation  of  philological  works 
whenever  he  came  in  contact  with  them.  When, 
therefore,  he  came  to  see  the  full  implications  of 

218 


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Evolution,  and  that  language  was  a  subject  which 
presented  a  fruitful  field  for  investigation  under  the 
illumination  of  this  new  scientific  searchlight,  he 
turned  to  his  philological  studies  with  greater  in- 
terest than  ever. 

The  letters  tell  us  of  his  frequent  dipping  into 
these  philological  studies  during  his  college  days, 
and  in  the  months  of  March,  April,  and  May,  1863, 
while  preparing  for  his  graduation,  we  see  him  ac- 
tively engaged  in  writing  an  essay  on. ''The  Evo- 
lution of  Language."  When  the  essay  was  finished 
he  submitted  it  to  Professor  Gurney,  who  pro- 
nounced it  "splendid."  He  then  offered  it  to  Dr. 
Peabody,  the  editor  of  "The  North  American 
Review,"  who  promptly  accepted  it,  and  it  was 
published  in  the  "Review"  for  October,  1863. 

In  this  essay  Fiske  took  as  his  text  the  philolog- 
ical theories  of  Max  Miiller,  Renan,  and  Spencer, 
and  with  the  ideas  of  these  thinkers  as  a  basis,  he 
reviewed  the  whole  philological  question  as  to  the 
origin  and  development  of  language,  undertaking 
to  show  that  the  growth  of  human  speech  has  con- 
formed throughout  to  a  fixed  regular  law  of  Evolu- 
tion. 

After  clearing  away,  as  inconsistent  with  an  at- 
tempt to  give  a  rational  explanation  of  language,  the 
two  alternate  theories  that  "it  was  invented  by  an 
academy  of  mute  philosophers,  or  that  some  super- 
human instructor  came  down  with  grammar  and 
dictionary  and  taught  mankind  the  rudiments  of 

219 


John  Fiske 

speech, "  he  gave  a  rapid  survey  of  the  results  of 
philologic  induction.  These  he  claimed  had  estab- 
lished the  fact  that  there  were  root  words  which 
were  the  ultimate  constituent  elements  of  all  lan- 
guages; that  these  root  words  were  of  two  kinds: 
predicative,  expressing  actions  or  existences,  and 
demonstrative,  denoting  locality.  A  rational  sys- 
tem of  classification  was  then  seen  to  be  that  which 
recognizes  as  its  basis  a  degree  of  coalescence  be- 
tween roots,  and  that  this  degree  of  coalescence  was 
an  index  of  a  certain  degree  of  integration.  Integra- 
tion and  differentiation  were  then  traced  as  prime 
factors  in  the  development  of  language,  not  only  in 
the  coalescences  of  roots,  but  also  in  the  concentra- 
tion of  syllabic  sounds  and  in  the  increasing  logical 
coherence  of  clauses.  Moreover,  the  generation  of 
dialects,  the  rise  of  parts  of  speech,  the  growth  of 
widely  divergent  words  from  a  common  root,  and 
the  development  of  widely  divergent  languages 
from  a  common  stock,  were  seen  to  be  pronounced 
instances  of  differentiation  or  linguistic  evolution. 
The  external  causes  of  the  evolution  of  language 
were  then  considered,  and  emphasis  was  put  upon 
coherence  and  stability  in  social  relations  —  a  sta- 
bility implied  in  family  relationships  which  are  alike 
removed  from  Turanian  nomadism  and  from  Chi- 
nese immutability. 

In  the  development  of  his  argument  the  results 
of  philological  science  seem  to  have  been  at  his 
ready  command.  The  ideas  of  Tooke,  Schelling, 

220 


Literary  Work 

Humboldt,  Grimm,  Bunsen,  Bopp,  Muller,  Gar- 
nett,  Donaldson,  Becker,  Renan,  Rapp,  Diez,  and 
Spencer  are  cited  so  apropos  and  illustrative  of  his 
own  thought  that  they  seem  to  drop  into  place  in 
his  argument  as  a  matter  of  course.  This  relieves 
the  essay  from  the  taint  of  pedantry.  While  im- 
mensely learned,  the  points  are  so  clearly  and  logi- 
cally arranged  and  the  style  is  so  lucid  that  any 
person  acquainted  with  the  declension  and  gram- 
matical arrangement  of  words  can  readily  under- 
stand the  general  argument. 

The  article  was  one  which  appealed,  of  course, 
only  to  scholars.  One  eminent  reviewer  said  of  it :  — 

"This  is  by  far  the  most  thoughtful  and  elab- 
orate article  in  this  number  of  the  'Review/  The 
author  has  something  of  the  tone  and  trend  of  the 
'  great  reviewers  *  in  his  style,  and  we  are  glad  to  see 
one  who  can  leave  the  nervous,  jack-o'-lantern  style 
of  our  New  England  Transcendentalists,  and  talk 
like  a  man  of  some  growth,  stature  and  dignity/* 

Professor  Youmans  was  quick  to  detect  the  qual- 
ity of  the  article ;  and  we  shall  see  a  little  later,  how 
he  sought  out  Fiske  and  induced  him  to  open  corres- 
pondence with  Spencer. 

Of  Fiske's  contributions  to  the  "Harvard  Maga- 
zine "  during  his  senior  year,  already  alluded  to,  it 
can  be  said  that  they  bear  witness  to  his  wide  read- 
ing and  the  fertility  of  his  thought.  His  "Diatribe 
on  Archbishop  Whateley"  is  an  instance  of  how 
pungent  he  could  make  his  criticism  of  theologic 

221 


John  Fiske 

assumptions  when  fully  roused,  while  his  brief  ar- 
ticle on  Buddha  is  a  fine  illustration  of  his  fair- 
minded  historico-religious  criticism.  He  did  not  re- 
publish  this  article  in  his  collected  works  because 
he  intended  to  do  the  subject  greater  justice  in  a 
complete  essay. 

' '  Ye  Vital  Principle ' '  is  a  brief  undergraduate  bur- 
lesque on  the  metaphysical  manner  of  argumenta- 
tion. It  is  of  interest  as  showing  that  at  this  time 
Fiske's  thought,  even  in  its  lighter  moods,  was  cen- 
tred around  the  ultimate  questions  of  philosophy. 

"A  Very  Old  Tale"  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the 
working  of  his  mind  in  a  humorous  way  in  the  re- 
gions of  classic  fable.  This  "Very  Old  Tale  "  and  his 
"  Class  Supper  Ode  "  are  the  only  instances  we  have 
of  his  invoking  the  muse. 

It  is  a  little  remarkable  that  Fiske,  with  his 
high  order  of  thinking,  his  great  familiarity  with 
the  masterpieces  of  poetry,  and  his  rare  musical 
gifts,  should  not  have  felt  impelled  at  times  to  self- 
expression  in  poetic  form.  This  apparent  anomaly 
is  in  a  great  measure  accounted  for  by  the  high 
poetic  quality  of  much  of  his  prose.  We  shall  see 
later  that  in  the  expression  of  fine  and  noble  feeling 
through  the  medium  of  elegant  prose  no  writer  of 
his  time  has  exceeded  him. 

VI.  His  thoughts  by  the  way 

There  is  a  common  saying,  very  much  in  evi- 
dence in  some  branches  of  industry,  that  "a  good 

222 


Thoughts  by  the  Way 

workman  is  known  by  his  chips."  Fiske's  under- 
graduate letters  are  so  full  of  fine  bits  of  thought  in- 
cidentally thrown  off  by  him  while  "  hewing  to  line," 
as  it  were,  in  his  various  studies,  that  a  few  examples 
of  his  thoughts  by  the  way  are  in  place,  as  show- 
ing how  continuously  and  naturally  and  easily  his 
mind  was  working  with  great  themes. 

His  mother  has  asked  him  the  meaning  of  "  ham  " 
in  Petersham  —  a  town  we  are  to  know  a  great  deal 
about  in  the  years  to  come.  Fiske  replies,  quite 
incidentally,  with  the  following  interesting  bit  of 
philologico-historic  information:  — 

1 ' '  Ham '  means  town  or  village.  1 1  is  kindred  with 
'home*  in  old  Teutonic.  'Hamlet*  means  a  little 
village  —  '  let/  like  '  leaflet/  a  little  leaf.  Appended 
to  the  names  of  towns  we  have  'ham/  'wick/ 
'stead/  'burg/  'ville/  'Wick*  is  from  the  Latin 
'  Vicus '  —  a  village.  '  Vicus '  comes  from  '  victim ' 
the  participial  of  'vivere/  to  live,  and  is  kindred 
with  'victuals/  'vital/  'vivacity/  and  a  host  of 
words.  'Stead/  as  'Barnsted/  comes  from  'stadt* 
: —  town,  that  which  stands.  '  Ipswich '  — '  Ips '  and 
'vicus.'  'Burg  St.  Edmunds'  —  'Burg*  and  'St. 
Edmunds/  No  use  in  filling  a  quire  called  up  by 
association.  Suffice  that  the  ends  of  towns  show  the 
different  conquerors  of  England. 

Wick  is  Celtic. 

Ham  is  Danish. 

Sted   1 

Stead  >  are  Saxon. 

Burg  J 

Ville  is  Norman  French. 

223 


John  Fiske 

"Language  is  a  witness  that  cannot  give  false 
evidence." 

Fiske  is  reading  Lewes's  "Life  of  Goethe,"  and 
with  it  he  is  also  reading  Goethe's  "Faust."  He 
writes:  — 

"I  had  no  idea  that  Goethe  was  such  a  miracu- 
lous giant  of  intellect.  His  mind  was  clear  and  ob- 
jective, almost  positive.  As  a  poet  he  must  be 
placed  almost  on  the  level  of  Shakespeare;  and  his 
conception  of  the  Law  of  Development  in  the  organic 
world  will  place  him  in  the  first  rank  of  scientific 
thinkers;  while  his  universal  learning  could  put  to 
despair  the  most  assiduous  plodder  Germany  has 
ever  produced.  Lewes  says,  'Faust'  is  the  greatest 
poem  of  modern  times;  and  I  will  say  that  I  never 
before  came  across  such  a  marvellous  poem  in  my 
life.  The  metres  in  'Faust'  are  magical;  the  most 
exquisite  little  short  verses,  light  and  airy  as  gossa- 
mer, are  mingled  with,  or  rather  followed  by,  as  the 
thought  changes,  massive  hexameters  which  pound 
like  the  tramp  of  a  thousand  battalions." 

He  is  reading  the  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew  with 
Dr.  Noyes,  and  his  penetrating  eye  has  caught 
an  anachronism  in  the  sacred  record.  He  writes 
thus: — 

"This  week  I  found  a  Chaldee  word  in  the  Elo- 
him  document.  There  was  no  Semitic  Chaldee  how- 
ever until  after  David.  What  could  that  Chaldee 
word  be  doing  in  a  document  written  by  the  fes- 
tive Moses?  The  Elohim  is  the  earlier  document 
you  know." 

224 


Thoughts  by  the  Way 

There  is  much  in  the  letters  regarding  his  philo- 
logical studies.  He  is  reading  Garnett's  "Philo- 
logical Essays,"  and  he  says:  — 

"Garnett's  analysis  of  the  verb  is  glorious  and  is 
based  on  an  immense  induction  from  the  principal 
languages  of  both  continents.  He  shows  it  to  be 
simply  a  noun  or  other  part  of  speech  always  in  com- 
bination with  a  pronoun  in  an  oblique  case.  This  is 
said  by  Donaldson  to  be  a  great  discovery  and  he 
proves  it  in  regard  to  the  Greek  verb  in  Cratylus." 

There  are  many  references  to  Donaldson,  the 
eminent  English  philologist  and  Biblical  critic.  In 
one  letter  Fiske  says:  — 

"I  have  read  nearly  the  whole  of  Donaldson's 
'  Varronianus'  this  week.  It  gives  some  most  won- 
derful revelations  as  to  the  origin  of  the  different 
original  races,  particularly  those  of  ancient  Italy." 

i    Speaking  of  Donaldson's  death  in  1 861 ,  from  over- 
work, he  says:  — 

"I  don't  wonder  at  it,  for  I  believe  he  had  read 
every  square  inch  of  paper  that  had  been  dirtied  by 
ink  since  the  world  began." 

One  of  the  important  scientific  books  of  the  time, 
and  one  that  has  been  of  much  influence  upon  the 
development  of  physical  and  chemical  science  dur- 
ing the  last  half-century  was  Grove's  "Correlation 
and  Conservation  of  Forces."  This  work  Fiske  read 
with  great  eagerness  and  he  comments  thus:  — 

"Grove's  work  is  just  the  thing.  He  shows  that 
heat,  light,  electricity,  magnetism,  chemical  affinity, 

225 


John  Fiske 

and  motion  can  all  be  transformed  into  one  an- 
other and  are  but  manifestations  of  one  and  the 
same  force.  What  I  like  best  of  all  in  the  book  is 
that  the  author  entirely  abstains  from  bringing  in 
metaphysical  ethics  or  entities.  He  writes  in  a 
positive  spirit,  and  everything  he  writes  is  forcible 
and  striking." 

Fiske's  comments  upon  President  Felton's  Greek 
scholarship  are  of  interest,  not  only  by  reason  of 
the  latter's  long  service  at  the  college  as  Professor 
of  Greek,  but  also  because  we  are  soon  to  see  him 
administering  to  Fiske  a  "Public  Admonition." 
Fiske  is  reading  Grote's  " History  of  Greece"  for 
the  second  time  and  in  a  letter  to  Roberts  he  ex- 
presses himself  thus:  — 

"I  am  disgusted  to  see  that  Felton,  in  his  notes 
on  the  '  Clouds  of  Aristophanes,1  embraces  all  those 
old-fashioned  Kronian  ideas  about  the  *  base  prin- 
ciples of  the  Sophists'  and  the  'corruption*  which 
they  produced  in  Athens  during  the  Age  of  Pericles 
and  the  Peloponnesian  War.  ...  He  likewise  amuses 
himself  with  blackguarding  Klion  and  the  Athen- 
ian constitution.  ...  I  consider  Grote's  chapters  on 
the  Sophists  and  on  Socrates  to  be  two  of  the  best 
chapters  I  ever  read." 

In  this  same  letter  he  gives  quite  a  full  sketch  of 
the  life  and  works  of  Voltaire,  with  the  judgment 
upon  him  of  Goethe,  Humboldt,  Carlyle,  Buckle, 
and  others.  In  closing  he  says:  — 

"When  we  consider  the  immense  influence  which 
Voltaire's  writings  have  had  upon  the  European 

226 


Dogmatic  Christianity 

mind,  we  may  perhaps  affirm  that  he  did  more  than 
any  other  single  man  to  destroy  (dogmatic)  Chris- 
tianity. It  may  be  well  however  to  remark  that  he 
never  mentioned  the  Founder  of  Christianity  except 
in  terms  of  the  deepest  respect." 

The  very  earnest  public  discussion  of  dogmatic 
Christianity  at  this  time,  occasioned  by  the  resigna- 
tion of  Dr.  Huntington  and  the  publication  of  Mr. 
Darwin's  great  work,  can  hardly  be  conceived.  This 
discussion  was  greatly  heightened  by  the  publi- 
cation in  England  and  America  of  a  remarkable 
volume  of  seven  "  Essays  and  Reviews "  by  seven 
prominent  English  churchmen,  in  which  there  was 
given  out  a  distinctly  evangelical  call  for  a  more 
rational  interpretation  of  Scripture  and  dogma,  in 
the  light  of  science  and  Biblical  criticism,  than 
had  hitherto  prevailed.  Accordingly,  we  find  Fiske 
giving  much  attention  to  ecclesiastical  history, 
especially  in  its  bearing  upon  dogma.  The  many 
bare-faced  assumptions  by  Christian  apologetics 
for  the  Divine  origin  of  the  principal  dogmas  of  the 
Christian  religion ;  the  long  and  terrible  struggle  the 
human  mind  has  undergone  to  free  itself  from 
bondage  to  these  dogmas,  together  with  the  fact 
that  through  ecclesiastical  intolerance  belief  in  them 
was  still  enforced,  made  Fiske  indignant  that  in 
these  later  days  the  love  for  knowledge  and  the 
search  for  truth  should  be  held  in  subordination  to 
belief  in  a  dogmatic  religious  creed. 

His  conviction  that  the  great  body  of  Christian 

227 


John  Fiske 

believers  were  ignorant  of  the  facts  regarding  the 
origin  and  development  of  the  Christian  dogmas 
finds  frequent  expression  in  the  letters.  In  a  letter 
to  Roberts  he  has  occasion  to  refer  to  the  Christian 
forgery  of  the  account  of  Jesus  in  the  eighteenth 
book  of  Josephus  and  to  the  opinions  of  the  scholars 
of  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  regarding 
the  doctrines  of  the  early  Christians  (some  extracts 
were  given),  and  he  says:  — 

"Of  course,  if  Christianity  had  been  anything  in 
A.D.  80  or  90,  Josephus  would  have  spoken  of  it. 
The  Christians  must  have  felt  the  force  of  this,  or 
they  would  not  have  forged  a  passage  to  suit  them- 
selves; and  may  we  not  infer  from  these  extracts 
that  Christianity  was  an  insignificant  thing  in  the 
3d  century  when  a  man  like  Plotinus  knew  it  only 
through  one  of  its  most  heretical  forms;  while  men 
of  genius  like  Lucian  and  Porphyry  rejected  it  with 
contempt  —  Porphyry  showed  up  its  shortcomings 
with  an  erudition  unequalled  until  modern  times. 
Dogmatic  Christianity  reigned  supreme  in  the  Dark 
Ages  of  ignorance;  and  the  first  heralds  of  the  new 
dawn  of  the  intellect  —  such  as  Abelard  were  here- 
tics, and  the  men  of  three  or  four  centuries  after, 
such  as  Vanini  and  Giordano  Bruno  were  down- 
right infidels.  Talk  about  its  miraculous  progress! 
When  Plotinus  in  the  3d  century  had  hardly  heard 
of  it;  when  Mohammed,  one  century  after  his  death 
was  acknowledged  as  Prophet  from  Delhi  to  Cor- 
dova; and  when  Mohammedan  science  and  learn- 
ing was  all  that  kept  the  lamp  of  knowledge  from 
expiring.  While  Christians  were  going  through 
their  mummeries  to  save  their  souls  the  Kalif  Al 

228 


Dogmatic  Christianity 

Mamum  was  observing  stars  and  measuring  a  de- 
gree on  the  surface  of  the  earth." 

Many  extracts  from  the  letters  might  be  given 
showing  Fiske's  bitter  hostility  at  this  time  to  dog- 
matic Christianity;  and  this  feeling  was  intensified 
by  the  discussion  going  on  about  him,  and  as  we 
shall  further  see,  by  his  own  college  experiences.  In 
later  years,  however,  we  are  to  see  him  give  Chris- 
tianity a  place  in  his  scheme  of  philosophy  as  em- 
bodying the  highest  phase  yet  reached  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  religious  nature  of  man,  and  as 
undergoing  a  process  of  development  to  a  higher 
stage  of  religious  manifestation. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  references  to  Spencer 
in  the  letters.  All  are  of  interest  as  showing  how 
readily  Fiske's  thought  responded  to  Spencer's  as 
the  latter  was  unfolded,  but  three  extracts  must 
suffice  the  purpose  here.  In  a  letter  to  Roberts  he 
says:  — 

"The  5th  number  of  Spencer 1  concludes  the  ex- 
planation of  the  change  from  the  homogeneous  to 
the  heterogeneous  —  differentiation  —  and  the  re- 
maining numbers  are  to  be  taken  up  in  explaining 
the  change  from  the  indefinite  to  the  definite  —  in- 
tegration. I  see  that  the  old  fellow  is  gradually 
proving  that  the  Law  of  Evolution  is  itself  a  co- 
rollary from  the  Persistence  of  Force,  and  conse- 
quently possesses  the  highest  deductive  as  well  as 
the  highest  possible  inductive  proof." 

1  Spencer  was  then  bringing  out  First  Principles  in  "  Numbers." 

229 


John  Fiske 
Again:  — 

"  I  read  Spencer  on  the  'Laws  of  Organic  Form' 
last  night,  but  it  was  so  omnisciently  learned  that 
I  could  barely  understand  it.  He  brought  up  as  il- 
lustrations, nearly  one  hundred  kinds  of  plants 
of  which  I  knew  absolutely  nothing.  He  brought 
them  in  with  such  perfect  coolness,  and  proceeded 
to  argue  from  the  way  the  leaves  are  cleft  and  the 
petals  arranged  in  each  kind,  with  such  an  apparent 
unconsciousness  that  other  people  did  n't  know  all 
the  vegetables  in  creation  that  I  began  to  think 
myself  a  block-head.  However,  though  I  did  n't 
know  all  the  facts,  I  was  enough  of  a  naturalist  to 
appreciate  the  argument;  and  he  showed  that  same 
amazing  power  of  thought,  and  that  same  incon- 
ceivable amount  of  learning  he  shows  in  whatever 
he  undertakes  to  write  about.  I  felt  a  sense  of  awe 
after  closing  the  book  as  if  I  had  been  holding 
communion  with  Omniscience;  and  this  I  never  felt 
when  reading  any  one  else.  During  a  country 
ramble  with  Lewes  in  1851,  he,  Spencer,  happened 
to  pick  up  a  buttercup,  and  as  he  drew  it  through 
his  fingers  so  as  to  alter  the  shape  in  a  curious  way, 
an  idea  struck  him  which  he  has  since  developed  into 
one  of  the  greatest  discoveries  of  the  century.  In 
reading  this  one  thinks  of  Newton  and  the  apple." 

And  again :  — 

"  I  am  more  and  more  persuaded  that  Spencer  is 
the  greatest  thinker  of  this  time.  He  has  found  the 
summum  genus;  he  has  made  all  the  specific  divi- 
sions and  sub-divisions ;  and  has  not  only  pointed  out 
the  methods  of  constructing  a  Positive  philosophy, 
but  has  also  constructed  one." 

230 


Publicly  Admonished 

In  the  letters  are  equally  thoughtful  references 
to  Grote,  Bunsen,  Gibbon,  Comte,  Humboldt,  Max 
Miiller,  Lyell,  Calvin,  Tocqueville,  Dickens,  Bul- 
wer,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Herschel,  Darwin,  Agassiz, 
and  others.  The  foregoing  extracts  are  sufficient, 
however,  to  show  the  general  tendency  of  Fiske's 
thought  at  this  period,  and  how  far  and  away  it 
was  beyond  the  college  requirements. 

VII.  He  receives  a  "Public  Admonition"  with  a 
threatened  expulsion 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  his  excellent  scholar- 
ship and  his  exemplary  personal  conduct,  Fiske  was 
persona  non  grata  to  some  members  of  the  Harvard 
Faculty,  who  fain  would  have  had  students  meas- 
ured, not  by  their  attainments  and  general  upright- 
ness, but  rather  by  their  religious  beliefs  and  their 
observance  of  church  services.  Mention  has  been 
made  of  the  reputation  Fiske  achieved  during  his 
sophomore  year  of  being  a  pretty  well-equipped 
Darwinian.  He  was  also  credited  with  holding 
the  heretical  opinions  of  Emerson  and  Theodore 
Parker,  as  well  as  being  infected  with  the  highly 
objectionable  virus  of  Positivism. 

The  opening  of  his  junior  year,  therefore,  reveals 
him  as  a  " suspect"  with  some  members  of  the  fac- 
ulty who  appear  to  have  been  apprehensive  of  his 
* l  silent  influence ' '  among  the  students.  Accordingly, 
he  was  closely  "observed"  by  the  Parietal  Commit- 
tee for  discipline  on  the  slightest  occasion.  And  the 

231 


John  Fiske 

committee  had  not  long  to  wait.  In  October,  1861, 
he  was  caught  flagrante  delicto  in  a  high  "misde- 
meanor. ' '  He  was ' '  observed  * '  reading  in  church  from 
a  volume  of  Com  te  and  was  promptly  "summoned." 

Students  had  read  in  this  church  without  cen- 
sure for  years,  and  Professor  Goodwin  said  that 
Fiske  was  probably  the  least  guilty  of  all.  On 
answering  the  summons  he  was  first  questioned  by 
the  President  in  regard  to  his  religious  views.  Fiske 
frankly  stated  his  disbelief  in  many  of  the  dogmas 
of  Christian  theology,  and  was  equally  frank  in 
expressing  his  adherence  to  what  was  then  termed, 
for  want  of  a  better  name,  the  Positive  Philosophy. 
He  was  then  taken  before  the  faculty  and  charged 
with  disseminating  infidelity  among  the  students 
and  with  gross  misconduct  at  church  by  reading 
during  the  service.  The  effort  was  made  to  inter- 
relate the  two  offences  by  presenting  the  latter  as 
the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  former  —  a  desire  to 
show  a  disrespect  for  the  Christian  faith. 

Fiske  met  the  two  charges  in  a  manner  character- 
istic of  the  fair-minded  youth  that  he  was.  He  had 
no  apologies  to  make  for  his  opinions;  and  he  dis- 
sociated the  two  charges  as  having  in  his  mind 
not  the  slightest  relation  to  each  other.  He  denied 
having  in  any  way  tried  to  influence  the  religious 
views  of  others ;  asserted  that  such  an  effort  would 
be  wholly  against  his  principles;  and  that  he  re- 
spected the  views  of  others  as  much  as  he  wished 
his  own  respected.  As  to  the  misconduct  at  church 

232 


Publicly  Admonished 

he  frankly  admitted  that  it  was  unjustifiable;  that 
if  it  had  been  meant  as  a  deliberate  insult  to  the 
Christian  faith,  it  would  have  been  also  an  insult 
to  the  college,  and  there  could  be  no  punishment 
too  severe  for  such  misconduct.  He  fully  justified 
the  faculty  for  calling  him  to  account.  He  did  the 
act  unthinkingly,  but  that  was  no  excuse;  he  had 
violated  a  regulation  of  the  college;  he  apologized 
and  assured  the  faculty  there  would  be  no  repeti- 
tion of  the  offence. 

The  President  and  Professors  Bowen  and  Cooke 
were  very  bitter  —  Professor  Bowen  contending 
that  the  misconduct  at  church  was  not  only  a  legiti- 
mate outcome,  but  was  also  a  mild  form  of  mani- 
festation, of  such  reprehensible  doctrines  as  were 
held  by  Fiske  —  and  they  wanted  him  suspended 
for  a  year.  They  would  have  carried  their  point  had 
it  not  been  for  the  very  active  part  taken  by  several 
members  of  the  faculty,  and  especially  by  Dr.  A.  P. 
Peabody,  who  maintained  that  it  would  be  a  dis- 
grace to  the  college  to  suspend  one  of  the  best 
students  simply  for  reading  in  church  and  especially 
after  an  ample  apology  had  been  freely  made. 

Fiske  was  let  off  with  a  "Public  Admonition." 
He  read  no  more  in  church,  nor  do  we  hear  of 
charges  against  him  of  disseminating  infidelity 
among  the  students;  but  we  do  hear  of  the  preva- 
lence of  opinions  very  similar  to  his,  all  through  the 
junior  and  senior  classes,  while  they  appear  to  have 
been  rife  among  the  members  of  the  faculty  itself. 

233 


John  Fiske 

The  most  significant  fact,  however,  connected 
with  this  church  incident  is  President  Felton's  sub- 
sequent action.  It  appears  that  under  date  of  Oc- 
tober 16,  1861,  he  wrote  Mrs.  Stoughton,  giving  his 
version  of  the  affair,  — which  does  not  differ  materi- 
ally from  the  foregoing  account,  —  and  closed  his 
letter  with  the  following  courteous,  but  no  less  pos- 
itive, admonition,  as  to  the  result  which  would  at- 
tend her  son's  giving  any  further  expression  to  his 
religious  views  while  at  college.  He  said:  — • 

"  Your  son's  good  character  in  general,  and  his 
faithful  attention  to  his  studies,  induced  the  faculty 
to  limit  the  censure  to  a  Public  Admonition.  I  have 
only  to  add,  that  while  we  claim  no  right  to  inter- 
fere with  the  private  opinion  of  any  student,  we 
should  feel  it  our  duty  to  request  the  removal  of 
any  one  who  should  undertake  to  undermine  the 
faith  of  his  associates.  I  hope  you  will  caution  your 
son  upon  this  point;  for  any  attempt  to  spread  the 
mischievous  opinions  which  he  fancies  he  has  es- 
tablished in  his  own  mind,  would  lead  to  an  instant 
communication  to  his  guardian  to  take  him  away." 

It  should  be  noted  that  this  church  incident  and 
this  letter  of  President  Felton  to  Mrs.  Stoughton 
are  coincident  with  Fiske's  completion  of  his  article 
on  Buckle,  which  was  finished,  as  we  have  seen, 
October  14,  1861.  A  cursory  glance  at  that  article, 
with  its  evidences  of  wide  reading  and  deep  think- 
ing on  some  of  the  profoundest  problems  that  can 
engage  the  human  mind,  shows  how  far  and  away 

234 


The  Civil  War 

was  the  thought  of  this  upright  youth  beyond  the 
minds  of  his  instructors,  who  would  fain  have  found 
in  his  "daily  walk  and  conversation"  reasons fof 
expelling  him  from  college. 

It  is  a  significant  commentary  on  this  letter  of 
President  Felton's,  threatening  the  expulsion  of 
Fiske  if  found  guilty  of  disseminating  Positive  or 
Evolutionary  ideas  among  students,  that  eight 
years  later,  in  the  first  dawn  of  the  new  era  at 
Harvard,  Fiske  should  be  officially  called  by  the 
new  President  to  expound  these  same  ideas  to  the 
college. 

VIII.  The  Civil  War:  its  effect  upon  his  mind 
And  still  the  record  of  these  eventful  college  days 
is  incomplete.  These  well-preserved  letters  of  fifty 
years  ago,  with  their  display  of  a  noble  love  for 
learning,  coupled  with  high  ideals  of  personal  char- 
acter, show  yet  another  phase  of  the  life  of  this 
scholarly  student  which  is  of  great  interest  to-day, 
as  reflecting  somewhat  the  terrible  ordeal  through 
which  the  Nation  was  passing. 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  main  issue  in  the 
great  Civil  War  struggle  was  projected  into  the  col- 
lege life  through  the  Law  School :  we  are  now  to  see 
how  the  undergraduate  life  was  affected  thereby. 

The  baleful  effect  of  this  fearful  conflict  was  at 
the  outset  severely  felt  in  the  quiet,  academic  shades 
of  Harvard.  In  the  spring  of  1 86 1  every  class  experi- 
enced the  sundering  of  class  ties  through  the  resig- 

235 


John  Fiske 

nations  of  students  from  the  Southern  States,  or  by 
the  departure  of  loyal  students  who  resigned  to  join 
the  Union  Army;  and  Harvard's  peaceful  yard  re- 
sounded with  military  preparations  in  response  to 
President  Lincoln's  "call  to  arms."  Harvard's  noble 
Memorial  Hall  is  an  eloquent  witness  to  the  patriot- 
ism of  her  sons. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  Fiske  appears  to  have 
been  indifferent  to  the  issues  involved  in  the  strug- 
gle. His  youth  and  his  scholarly  tastes  had  pre- 
cluded his  taking  an  active  interest  in  the  political 
discussions  which  had  preceded  the  war.  He  saw 
no  vital  difference  between  the  contending  political 
parties.  Strongly  anti-slavery  in  his  own  views,  the 
political  issues  appeared  to  him  mainly  as  questions 
of  more  or  less  slavery.  The  outbreak  of  the  war, 
therefore,  found  him  so  deeply  interested  in  the 
profound  philosophic  questions  then  coming  for- 
ward, and  so  engrossed  in  his  studies,  that  he  was 
in  great  measure  oblivious  to  the  social,  industrial, 
and  political  questions  involved  in  the  struggle. 
*  This  attitude  of  mind  is  not  surprising,  for  the 
only  direct  issue  presented  by  the  Northern  States 
or  by  the  Administration  was  a  political  one  —  the 
saving  of  the  Union  under  a  Constitution  which 
legalized  human  slavery.  Fiske's  friend  Roberts, 
however,  was  alive  to  the  deeper  issues  involved  in 
the  struggle,  and  in  April,  1861,  he  wrote  Fiske  a 
very  thoughtful  letter  on  the  two  diverse  forms  of 
political  and  social  organizations  presented  by  the 

236 


The  Civil  War 

Northern  and  Southern  States,  in  which  he  pointed 
out  what  might  be  expected  in  case  the  war  should 
be  prolonged. 

Fiske  did  not  reply  to  the  political  portion  of 
Roberts's  letter,  but  he  did  write  giving  full  par- 
ticulars of  his  reading.  Roberts  then  chides  him  for 
his  indifference  to  the  condition  of  the  country  and 
the  impending  struggle;  whereupon  Fiske  writes:  — 

"  What  fools  people  make  of  themselves  about 
this  confounded  war!  Why,  I  forget  there  is  a 
war  half  the  time.  What's  war  when  a  fellow  has 
'Kosmos'  on  his  shelf,  and  'Faust'  on  his  table?" 

One  is  reminded  by  this  sententious  remark  that 
a  good  portion  of ' '  Faust ' '  was  written  when  all  Ger- 
many was  engaged  in  the  great  Napoleonic  strug- 
gle, and  that  Goethe  has  been  subjected  to  much 
criticism  for  his  apparent  national  indifference. 

But  with  the  whole  nation  aroused,  Fiske  could 
not  long  remain  indifferent,  and  the  events  of  the 
war  soon  brought  his  eminently  philosophic  mind 
to  the  realization,  in  the  pithy  words  of  Lowell  — 

"That  civlyzation  doos  git  forrid 
Sometimes  upon  a  powder-cart." 

During  the  winter  and  spring  of  1862,  in  full 
sympathy  with  the  Union  people  of  the  North,  he 
became  an  interested  observer  of  the  gathering  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  under  General  McClellan 
for  the  campaign  against  Richmond.  With  a  feeling 
of  loyal  pride  he  saw  this  magnificent  army  officered 

237 


John  Fiske 

by  the  ripest  experience  and  the  best  blood  of  the 
Northern  States  and  thoroughly  equipped  with  all 
the  munitions  for  offensive  warfare.  Never  before 
.in  human  history  was  there  gathered  a  nobler  army 
for  a  nobler  purpose  than  was  this  Army  of  the 
Potomac ;  and  never  before  did  an  army  go  forth  to 
combat  with  greater  confidence  on  the  part  of  its 
supporters  in  its  ultimate  victory. 

With  dismay  Fiske  saw  this  heroic  army  when 
within  sight  of  Richmond  caught  in  the  treacherous 
swamps  of  the  Chickahominy,  where,  divided  by  an 
impassable  stream  and  without  the  possibility  of 
concentration,  it  was  attacked  by  a  greatly  inferior 
force  and  was  compelled  to  fight  defensively  day 
after  day,  until,  banged  and  beaten  in  detail,  it  was 
at  last  driven,  after  immense  losses,  to  the  shelter 
of  its  guns  on  the  banks  of  the  James,  whence  it  was 
rescued  by  the  naval  transports. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  present  generation  to  real- 
ize the  effect  of  this  disaster  upon  the  people  of  the 
Northern  States,  accompanied  as  it  was  by  an  effort 
on  the  part  of  General  McClellan  to  shift  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  disaster  on  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, and  also  by  a  letter  from  him  to  the  President 
advising  the  latter  as  to  the  political  conduct  of  the 
war.  This  letter  was  a  strong  pro-slavery  document. 
Fiske  became  thoroughly  aroused,  and  he  expressed 
in  strong  language  his  opinion  as  to  McClellan's 
incapacity,  and  his  indignation  at  his  attempt  to 
"play  politics"  in  the  face  of  such  a  disaster. 

238 


The  Civil  War 

Three  months  after  McClellan's  defeat  before 
Richmond,  September  22,  1862,  President  Lincoln 
issued  his  first  Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  fol- 
lowed by  more  vigorous  measures  for  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  War.  How  these  measures  were  received 
by  many  influential  "constitutional"  people  at  the 
North  we  have  already  seen.  How  they  were  re- 
ceived by  the  loyal  people  of  the  North  is  clearly 
reflected  in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  of 
Fiske's,  written  September  24,  1862,  two  days  after 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation:  — 

"What  a  splendid  thing  the  President's  Procla- 
mation is.  I  am  really  enthusiastic  about  the  war 
now.  I  feel  as  if  we  were  fighting  henceforth  with 
an  end  in  view.  I  hope  that  the  fiendish  institution 
of  slavery,  which  has  hitherto  made  me  ashamed  of 
America,  is  at  last  to  fall.  I  always  was  a  red-hot 
anti-slavery  man  in  principle,  but  never  cared  much 
for  the  success  of  a  war  that  was  to  leave  us  on 
this  question  just  where  we  were  before.  I  always 
felt  that  union  was  impossible  without  abolition. 
I  think  the  Union  cause  is  better  off  now  than  ever; 
and  if  this  Proclamation  takes  effect,  I  shall  con- 
sider homely  '  Old  Abe '  the  most  glorious  ruler  we 
ever  had.  I  am  studying  the  war  hard,  strategy  and 
everything." 

Fiske's  manner  of  studying  the  war  strategy  was 
characteristic  of  his  thorough  way  of  doing  things. 
He  subscribed  to  the  "New  York  Daily  Times." 
He  then  procured  large  maps  of  the  various  fields 
of  military  operations  which  he  fastened  to  the 

239 


John  Fiske 

walls  of  his  rooms,  and  with  pins  of  different  col- 
ored heads  he  was  able  on  his  maps  to  follow  the 
movements  of  the  contending  forces.  Every  eve- 
ning after  supper  he  took  his  strategy  lesson. 

But  what  is  of  special  significance,  in  view  of 
Fiske's  future  history  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
and  his  subsequent  thought  as  to  its  practical  work- 
ing, was  his  deep  interest  in  the  Constitutional  ques- 
tions that  now  arose  from  President  Lincoln's  ex- 
ercise of  the  war  powers  of  his  great  office. 

In  the  autumn  of  1862  the  political  opposition 
to  President  Lincoln  was  focussed  around  the  can- 
didacy of  Horatio  Seymour  for  Governor  of  New 
York;  and  the  issue  was  the  alleged  usurpation  of 
unconstitutional  power  by  the  President.  This 
phase  of  the  contest  was  brought  directly  home  to 
Fiske,  not  only  by  reason  of  his  warm  personal  re- 
gard for  Judge  Curtis,  but  also  by  the  fact  that  the 
views  of  Judge  Curtis  were  shared  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Stoughton  —  and  they  were  all  heartily  support- 
ing Mr.  Seymour.  Fiske,  however,  did  not  waver 
for  a  moment  in  his  support  of  the  President ;  and  in 
a  letter  to  his  mother,  after  expressing  a  wish  that 
she  would  read  John  Stuart  Mill's  pamphlet  on 
"The  Contest  in  America,"  he  says:  "When  next 
you  see  me  you  will  find  me  full  to  the  brim  of 
war  and  politics  —  a  fierce  anti-secession  and  anti- 
slavery  man." 

Shortly  after,  he  received  from  his  mother  a 
letter,  in  which,  besides  giving  him  her  own  views, 

240 


The  Civil  War 

she  sent  him  a  batch  of  the  politico-constitutional 
literature  of  the  day,  in  which  the  Administration 
was  presented  as  a  greater  foe  to  the  country  than 
the  Southerners  in  arms.  Fiske's  loyal  indignation 
knows  no  bounds:  and  in  a  letter  under  date  of 
November  3,  1862,  —  the  day  before  the  New  York 
election,  —  he  frees  his  mind.  This  letter  contains 
one  paragraph  which  to-day  has  a  historical  as 
well  as  a  deep  personal  interest:  — 

"Oh,  I  cannot  sleep  in  peace  until  I  know  the 
result  of  to-morrow's  election  in  New  York.  If  all 
were  confided  to  our  armies  it  would  be  well;  but 
here  is  a  great  secession  party  arisen  at  the  North, 
and  calling  itself  Democratic!  what  shall  we  do? 
Just  think  of  voting  for  Horatio  Seymour  and 
Fernando  Wood !  It  is  high  time  to  suspend  Habeas 
Corpus,  when  treason  is  rife  in  every  dwelling. 
Much  as  I  love  liberty  of  thought  and  speech,  it 
were  better  to  have  a  despotism  than  this  horrible 
anarchy.  What  is  the  use  of  getting  up  these  im- 
mense armies  of  600,000  men  and  building  iron- 
clad fleets,  if  we  are  going  to  have  a  hornet's  nest  of 
treason  growing  here  at  home.  I  am  getting  dis- 
couraged. I  hear  treason  and  nothing  else  talked 
all  the  time.  If  Lincoln  would  hang  the  leaders  of 
the  Democratic  party,  and  kick  McClellan  out  of 
the  army,  it  would  be  well ;  but  such  a  result  is  too 
good  to  be  hoped  for." 

Some  worthy  people  might  say  that  the  foregoing 
extract  was  rather  an  extravagant  ebullition  of  a 
somewhat  heated  youthful  patriotism.  Neverthe- 

241 


John  Fiske 

less,  it  reflects  with  great  truth  the  terrible  ordeal 
through  which  President  Lincoln's  Administration 
was  passing,  as  well  as  the  depth  of  feeling  of  the 
loyal  people  of  the  Northern  States  who  were  deter- 
mined that  the  Nation  in  its  entirety  should  live, 
and  that  the  disgrace  of  upholding  slavery  should 
be  removed  forever  from  its  Constitution. 

From  this  time  forward  Fiske' s  absorbing  inter- 
est in  the  success  of  the  Union  cause  never  lessened. 
He  carefully  followed  Grant's  campaign  against 
Vicksburg,  as  well  as  the  movements  of  the  contend- 
ing forces  around  Washington;  and  the  letters  give 
instances  of  sharp  altercations  with  students  of 
"Secesh"  proclivities.  To  Mr.  Lincoln's  letters  in 
1862  and  1863  to  various  persons,  defending  his 
Administration,  Fiske  paid  particular  attention,  re- 
garding them  as  the  best  and  clearest  expositions 
of  the  war  powers  of  the  President  under  the  Consti- 
tution that  were  called  forth  by  the  President's 
exercise  of  "  Executive  Power/' 

IX.  His  Engagement  to  Abby  Morgan  Brooks 
Still  another  phase  of  Fiske' s  life  during  his  col- 
lege days  remains  to  be  told.  Not  his  study,  not 
his  writing,  not  his  college  rank,  not  his  patriotism 
are  the  full  index  of  his  intellectual  activities  during 
this  memorable  period.  No  record  of  his  collegiate 
life  would  be  in  any  sense  complete  that  did  not 
include  his  romantic  acquaintance  with  Abby  Mor- 
gan Brooks,  their  engagement,  and  the  ennobling 

242 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

influence  of  their  betrothal  upon  the  whole  range 
of  his  intellectual  activities  during  his  junior  and 
senior  years.  Briefly  as  this  story  must  be  told,  it 
will  be  seen  that  it  reveals  an  affectionate  element 
as  a  marked  characteristic  in  Fiske' s  intellectual 
make-up ;  and  that  this  element  is  a  fitting  comple- 
ment to  his  love  for  knowledge,  in  that  it  gives  to 
the  latter  its  finest  zest  —  a  desire  to  share  its  tri- 
umphs and  honors  with  another. 

There  is  further  reason  for  this  story  here  with 
much  particularity  of  incident,  for  in  the  years  to 
come  we  are  to  see  this  betrothal  experience,  of 
which  we  have  such  an  interesting  and  faithful 
record,  unfold  and  ripen  into  a  domestic  life  of 
great  richness  and  fulness,  carrying  with  it,  in  ever- 
increasing  measure  to  the  very  end,  the  fine,  enno- 
bling flavor  with  which  it  began. 

At  Miss  Catharine  Upham's,  where,  as  we  have 
seen,  Fiske  had  taken  rooms,  there  were  a  goodly 
number  of  boarders.  Professor  and  Mrs.  Child 
were  there;  and,  in  addition  to  a  few  undergradu- 
ates like  Fiske,  there  were  students  from  the  Law 
School,  as  well  as  some  young  women  attending 
Professor  Agassiz's  school  for  young  ladies.  Among 
the  students  from  the  Law  School  was  James  W. 
Brooks,  of  Petersham,  Massachusetts,  who,  having 
been  graduated  at  the  Law  School  in  1858,  was  now 
pursuing  some  extra  studies.  The  elder  sister  of 
Mr.  Brooks,  Abby  Morgan  Brooks,  had  previously 
been  a  student  at  Professor  Agassiz's  school,  and 

243 


John  Fiske 

had  also  boarded  at  Miss  Upham's.  She  had  many 
friends  in  Cambridge,  and  during  the  spring  of  1861 
she  was  much  with  her  brother  at  Miss  Upham's. 

Miss  Brooks  enjoyed  intimate  social  relations 
with  Professor  and  Mrs.  Child,  and  Professor  Child 
had  frequently  spoken  of  young  Fiske  as  one  of  the 
very  best  scholars  in  the  college.  He  seemed  to  take 
pleasure  in  telling  of  Fiske's  devotion  to  his  studies, 
of  how  he  economized  his  time,  and  especially  of  his 
library  —  a  most  extraordinary  one  for  a  student. 
Miss  Brooks  being  with  Professor  and  Mrs.  Child 
one  morning  at  prayer  time,  he  took  her  to  the 
window  and  said,  "With  the  first  stroke  of  the 
chapel  bell,  Fiske  will  start  and  you  will  see  a  race 
to  reach  the  chapel  door  on  the  last  stroke."  Sure 
enough,  the  first  stroke  brought  a  rush  from  the 
house,  and  then,  with  rapid  strides  across  the  Delta, 
where  now  stands  Memorial  Hall,  Fiske  reached 
the  chapel  just  as  the  last  stroke  announced  the 
closing  of  the  doors. 

"This,"  said  Professor  Child  in  his  genial  way  — 
"this  is  the  devotion  we  see  every  morning." 

Miss  Brooks  and  Fiske,  although  they  lived  in 
the  same  house  for  several  weeks  in  the  spring  of 
1 861 ,  did  not  meet  until  the  evening  of  June  1 1 ,  at  a 
lawn  party  given  for  Miss  Brooks  previous  to  her 
leaving  for  her  home  at  Petersham.  They  then  met 
casually,  and  Fiske  was  introduced  to  her.  They 
had  a  pleasant  general  conversation  of  less  than 
half  an  hour;  and  on  her  remarking  that  she  was 

244 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

leaving  the  next  day,  he  expressed  his  regret  that 
he  had  not  met  her  before,  and  the  hope  that  he 
might  have  a  further  acquaintance  in  the  autumn. 

Miss  Brooks  was  favorably  impressed.  Fiske  was 
deeply  so;  and  the  impression  with  him  endured. 
She  was  much  in  his  mind  during  the  summer  vaca- 
tion. Soon  after  his  return  in  September  he  learned 
that  Miss  Brooks  was  planning  to  go  to  Chicago  in 
October,  with  the  intention  of  spending  the  winter 
there  with  her  brother  John.  He  was  so  deeply  in- 
terested that  he  decided  upon  prompt  action.  He 
would  go  at  once  to  Petersham,  have  an  interview 
with  Miss  Brooks  in  her  home,  and,  as  a  preliminary 
to  a  better  acquaintance,  ask  for  the  privilege  of  a 
correspondence.  Accordingly,  he  got  a  week's  leave 
of  absence  from  the  college  for  the  ostensible  pur- 
pose of  seeking  a  school  for  teaching  during  the 
winter,  and  on  Friday,  September  13,  1861,  he  set 
out  for  Petersham,  by  way  of  Athol  —  a  pilgrimage 
which  involved  at  its  farther  end,  by  reason  of  the 
train  arriving  too  late  for  the  coach,  a  tramp  of  nine 
miles  on  foot.  The  long  tramp  was  without  ad- 
venture, save  that  at  a  roadside  watering-place  he 
was  accosted  by  some  country  folk,  probably  by 
reason  of  his  somewhat  blousy  costume,  with  a 
question  which  reflects  the  agitation  of  the  time  — 
11  Be  ye  a  solger"?  Fiske  could  only  assure  his  ques- 
tioners that  he  had  no  belligerent  intentions. 

The  day  was  fine.  It  was  one  of  those  September 
days  in  New  England  when  all  nature  seems  at- 

245 


John  Fiske 

tuned.  The  glories  of  autumn's  rich  foliage  were 
just  beginning  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  occa- 
sional burning  bush,  the  scarlet  maple,  and  the 
variegated  tints  creeping  over  the  woodlands.  As 
Fiske  plodded  the  long  rise  of  road  from  Athol  to 
the  high  plateau  of  Petersham,  every  step  forward 
was  the  revelation  of  an  ever-increasing  charm, 
until,  as  he  reached  the  summit,  he  found  spread 
before  him  a  scene  of  indescribable  beauty  and  of 
singular  impressiveness,  as  on  either  hand  the  re- 
spective valleys  with  their  ridges  of  wooded  hills, 
just  blushing  with  autumn's  coming  colors,  rolled 
miles  and  miles  away. 

As  Fiske  moved  onward  he  was  profoundly 
affected  by  the  beauty  of  the  surrounding  country, 
and  as  he  approached  Petersham,  lying  a  little  be- 
low him  on  the  southern  slope  of  the  plateau,  he 
stepped  aside  to  survey  the  whole  scene  with  this 
hamlet  lying  so  quietly  before  him,  its  church  spire 
gilded  by  the  setting  sun  and  rising  so  picturesquely 
among  the  trees,  and  to  speculate  upon  what  these 
surroundings  held  in  store  for  him. 

Could  he  only  have  known!  In  the  years  to  come 
we  are  to  see  this  temporary  resting-place  trans- 
formed in  his  mind  into  a  veritable  Mount  Pisgah; 
we  are  also  to  see  this  romantic  adventure  ripen,  in 
the  midst  of  these  beautiful  surroundings,  into  the 
holiest  of  human  ties.  Further,  we  are  to  see  these 
surroundings  so  made  a  part  of  his  own  life  that  they 
are  to  become  a  measure  of  nature's  beauty  in  many 

246 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

Old- World  places  famous  for  their  scenic  charms, 
while  they  are  also  to  serve  as  a  fitting  setting  to 
some  of  the  profoundest  thinking  that  can  engage 
the  human  mind. 

Fiske  was  graciously  received  by  Miss  Brooks 
and  the  other  members  of  her  family  — her  mother, 
her  brother  James  and  sister  Martha.  At  first  he 
sought  to  disguise  the  purpose  of  the  visit  under  the 
plea  that  he  was  looking  for  a  school  to  teach  dur- 
ing the  winter.  James  Brooks,  however,  soon  saw 
through  this  gentle  subterfuge,  and  on  his  remark- 
ing "  that  there  was  n't  much  to  call  a  young  fellow 
to  such  an  out-of-the-way  place  as  Petersham  un- 
less he  has  some  object  of  special  interest  in  view/' 
Fiske  smiled,  and  frankly  admitted,  " That's  just 
my  case,  Mr.  Brooks!"  His  errand,  therefore,  was 
revealed  and  he  remained  in  Petersham  until  the 
following  Wednesday. 

He  saw  Miss  Brooks  several  times.  She  was  very 
gracious,  and  his  regard  for  her  greatly  increased. 
Just  before  leaving  he  asked  for  the  privilege  of  a 
correspondence,  and  he  accompanied  the  request 
with  the  assurance  that  there  was  not  an  act  of  his 
life  that  he  was  not  perfectly  willing  she  should 
know.  Somewhat  confused  by  the  directness  and 
the  evident  purpose  of  the  request,  Miss  Brooks 
thanked  him  for  his  desire  for  a  further  acquaint- 
ance and  told  him  she  would  be  pleased  to  corre- 
spond with  him  were  it  not  that  she  was  under 
certain  obligations  that  would  prevent  her  doing  so 

247 


John  Fiske 

at  present.  Seeing  his  evident  embarrassment,  she 
delicately  gave  him  to  understand  that  she  was  not 
engaged  to  be  married.  Feeling  that  it  would  be 
impertinent  to  press  for  further  explanation  of  the 
nature  of  her  obligations,  Fiske  let  the  matter  of  the 
correspondence  rest  for  the  present.  By  her  gra- 
cious manner  Miss  Brooks  placed  him  at  his  ease, 
and  on  his  leaving,  she  thanked  him  for  his  visit, 
telling  him  that  she  would  be  in  Boston  for  a  few 
days  previous  to  going  to  Chicago,  and  that  it  would 
give  her  pleasure  to  see  him  there. 

Fiske  returned  hopeful  if  not  confident.  What 
could  be  the  nature  of  the  obligation  Miss  Brooks 
was  under?  Was  it  a  promise  to  some  member  of 
her  family  given  to  protect  her  from  all  "entangling 
alliances,"  or  was  it  a  bit  of  womanly  tactfulness  or 
reserve  thrown  out  as  a  protection  against  a  rather 
impetuous  suitor?  In  either  case  he  felt  that  he  had 
made  decided  progress  in  his  suit.  He  had  enlarged 
his  knowledge  of  the  conditions,  and  he  had  an- 
nounced his  purpose,  which  had  not  been  rejected. 
Further  than  this,  he  had  found  Petersham  the  most 
delightful  place  he  had  ever  seen;  that  the  Brooks 
family  and  homestead  fitly  represented  the  best 
type  of  the  pure  New  England  character;  and  that 
Miss  Brooks,  in  her  own  home,  appeared  to  much 
better  advantage  even  than  on  the  occasion  of  his 
chance  meeting  with  her  in  Cambridge.  He  deter- 
mined, therefore,  to  follow  up  his  suit  on  the  visit  of 
Miss  Brooks  to  Boston. 

248 


ABBY    MORGAN    BROOKS 
(From  a  miniature  made  in  1861,  shortly  before  her  engagement  to  John  Fiske) 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

In  the  meantime  her  ideal  in  his  mind  is  greatly 
heightened  and  becomes  a  fresh  source  of  inspira- 
tion to  his  thought.  He  goes  at  his  Buckle  article, 
which  we  have  already  seen  was  under  way,  with 
renewed  ardor,  the  while  hoping  that  ere  long  she 
may  read  it  and  like  it,  and  that  he  may  be  able  to 
tell  her  that  she  was  in  no  small  degree  an  elemental 
force  in  its  composition. 

Just  as  he  was  leaving  for  his  Thanksgiving  visit 
to  his  grandmother,  Fiske  learned  that  Miss  Brooks 
was  spending  Thanksgiving  week  at  her  brother's 
in  Boston.  He  called  upon  her  on  his  way  to  his 
train,  but  did  not  find  her  at  home.  He  cut  short 
his  visit  to  his  grandmother,  and  returned  on  Satur- 
day of  the  Thanksgiving  week.  In  the  evening  he 
called  upon  Miss  Brooks  and  was  cordially  received. 
During  the  interview  he  asked  if  she  was  willing  to 
explain  the  nature  of  the  "obligations"  to  which 
she  had  referred  in  their  conversation  at  Petersham. 
This  she  said  she  was  perfectly  willing  to  do,  and  it 
was  arranged  that  he  should  call  the  next  Monday 
afternoon  for  the  explanation. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Fiske  was  prompt  in 
keeping  the  appointment,  and  it  is  quite  probable 
that  he  "cut"  a  recitation  or  lecture  in  so  doing. 
He  found  Miss  Brooks  knitting  socks  for  the  soldiers, 
a  very  general  occupation  then  for  loyal  women, 
and  he  "  lent  a  hand  "  in  the  unwinding  of  the  yarn. 

The  "obligation"  proved  to  be  a  promise  to  her 
brother  John  that  she  would  not  enter  into  cor- 
-*  249 


John  Fiske 

respondence  with  any  gentleman  without  his  con- 
sent. The  evidence  is  abundant  that  Miss  Brooks 
was  under  the  thoughtful  care  of  her  brothers.  In 
the  course  of  the  conversation,  she  told  Fiske  that 
she  had  thought  much  over  his  proposal  of  a  cor- 
respondence since  his  Petersham  visit,  and  inas- 
much as  her  mother  and  her  brother  James  had 
no  objection  to  her  engaging  in  it,  she  had  decided 
to  ask  the  consent  of  her  brother  John.  They 
parted  with  mutual  expressions  of  much  good-will, 
not  again  to  meet  until  Miss  Brooks's  return  in  the 
spring. 

Miss  Brooks  was  delayed  in  getting  away  by 
reason  of  the  departure  of  her  brother  James  for 
Paris  as  Vice-Consul  with  John  Bigelow,  and  she 
sent  Fiske  a  brief  note  in  explanation.  He  re- 
sponded by  sending  her  a  copy  of  his  article  on 
Buckle,  then  just  published.  On  Christmas  Day  he 
received  a  letter  from  Miss  Brooks  in  which  she 
acknowledged  the  receipt  of  the  article  and  ex- 
pressed her  profound  admiration  of  it.  Best  of  all, 
she  told  him  that  her  brother  John  gave  his  cordial 
consent  to  their  correspondence. 

Fiske  was  supremely  happy,  and  in  his  New 
Year's  letter  to  his  mother  of  January  i,  1862,  he 
gave  her  the  full  particulars  of  his  acquaintance 
with  Miss  Brooks,  and  he  wished  his  mother  "A 
Happy  New  Year"  in  nine  different  languages! 

In  replying  to  Miss  Brooks's  letter  assenting  to 
their  correspondence,  Fiske  expressed  his  great 

250 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

pleasure  at  her  approval  of  his  Buckle  article,  and 
added,  "More  than  one  sentence  in  it  was  framed 
with  the  thought  that  you  were  one  day  to  read  it; 
and  since  you  like  it,  what  more  could  I  desire?" 

He  proposed,  for  their  better  acquaintance,  that 
they  exchange  confidences  and  tell  each  other  what 
they  had  felt,  studied,  thought,  done;  and  as  an 
evidence  of  the  strength  and  sincerity  of  his  own 
feeling  he  enclosed  a  letter  he  wrote  her  on  the  eve- 
ning of  their  meeting  at  Miss  Upham's  the  previ- 
ous June  —  a  letter  he  had  withheld.  In  this  letter 
he  asked  for  "an  occasional"  friendly  correspond- 
ence, and  then  added :  — 

Something  almost  compels  me  to  write  this, 
though  I  readily  imagine  how  assuming  I  may  ap- 
pear in  doing  so.  But  I  can  sincerely  say  that  were 
the  state  of  things  now  to  exist,  of  which  we  read  in 
fairy  fable,  and  were  some  beneficent  genii  to  ask 
me  what  boon  of  all  I  would  soonest  have  granted 
me,  I  should  at  once  answer  this  —  that  you  might 
deign  to  bestow  upon  me  the  favor  for  which  I 
have  just  asked.  Should  you  think  best  to  refuse 
this  request,  I  beg  you  to  think  no  more  of  it.  I  am 
yours,  with  deep  respect, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

In  the  exchange  of  confidences  which  followed, 
there  are  delightful  passages  of  self-revealing  on 
both  sides.  On  his  part  he  gives,  in  a  simple,  truth- 
ful way,  charming  sketches  of  his  past  life  from 
his  earliest  boyhood;  of  his  father,  his  mother,  his 
grandparents;  his  Middletown  life,  his  schooling, 

251 


John  Fiske 

his  religious  experiences,  his  search  for  truth  and 
his  high  ideals  of  scholarship,  which  are  in  accord 
with  the  presentation  in  the  foregoing  pages.  Miss 
Brooks  responded  with  equal  frankness  and  gave 
an  account  of  her  life  as  a  member  of  a  cultured  New 
England  family  in  the  midst  of  the  pleasantest  sur- 
roundings; of  her  educational  training  and  the  free- 
dom of  her  mind  from  religious  sectarianism  or 
intolerance;  and  then,  with  fine  womanly  feeling, 
she  expressed  her  appreciation  of  the  upright, 
manly  traits  in  his  character,  her  deep  sympathy 
with  him  in  his  aspirations,  and  her  desire  to  follow 
him  as  far  as  possible  in  his  scholarly  pursuits. 

Only  a  few,  comparatively,  of  the  fine  passages  in 
Fiske' s  letters  can  be  given  here.  The  letters  as  a 
whole  are  another  witness  to  the  uprightness  of  his 
character  and  the  breadth  of  his  knowledge,  as  well 
as  to  the  fact  that  through  his  affections  he  was 
being  stirred  to  still  broader  and  nobler  ideals  of 
life  and  of  duty.] 

He  spent  his  winter  vacation  in  Middletown,  and 
he  gives  Miss  Brooks  the  following  bit  of  evidence 
that  she  possesses  rare  magical  powers:  — 

"I  brought  to  Middletown,  for  vacation  study, 
the  text  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  with  the  theoretic  com- 
ments of  several  old  tobaccoy,  lager-beery  Germans, 
a  book  on  Hebrew  syntax,  a  book  on  Sanskrit  in- 
flections, and  several  other  highly  interesting  and 
profitable  works  of  a  similar  stamp.  Just  for  vari- 
ety, I  brought  along  Dante  and  a  book  on  zoology. 

252 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

Ordinarily,  I  should  have  been  engrossed  in  these 
interesting  works;  but  since  I  have  come  within 
the  radius  of  your  attractive  power,  which  extends 
more  than  1000  miles,  —  the  attraction  NOT  di- 
minishing as  the  square  of  the  distance  increases,  — 
I  feel  compelled  to  write  to  you  rather  than  to 
study.  So  Q.E.D.  you  must  be  a  magician  of  no 
ordinary  power." 

Miss  Brooks  has  given  him  a  sketch  of  her  edu- 
cational training,  and  he  comments  upon  it  with 
such  ripe  judgment  that  we  forget  it  is  not  a  ma- 
ture, experienced  mind  that  is  speaking :  — 

"I  supposed  you  must  have  acquired  a  familiar- 
ity with  French,  and  I  am  very  glad  to  know  that 
you  have  studied  Latin  and  German.  After  all,  my 
dear  girl,  you  have  hit  upon  those  dialects  which  are 
most  useful  and  most  fraught  with  pleasure.  I 
mean  especially  French  and  German,  though  I  would 
not  discourage  the  study  of  Latin  for  young  ladies. 
Still,  Latin  has  less  charms  for  me  than  the  others. 
I  have  got  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  gram- 
mar and  structure  of  it  and  some  little  facility  in 
translating;  but  from  what  I  have  seen  of  Roman 
literature  I  think  it  so  dry  and  dull,  so  wanting  in 
freshness  and  thought  and  feeling,  that  it  seems 
almost  a  waste  of  time  for  a  young  lady  to  study 
it  when  she  might  be  spending  her  leisure  on  Ger- 
man —  a  language  of  eternal  freshness,  beauty,  and 
poetry.  Of  all  the  languages  I  have  looked  into,  I 
know  of  none  which  possesses  such  intense  and 
growing  fascination,  such  exquisite  beauty,  such 
exhaustless  wealth  of  learning,  thought,  fancy, 
and  emotion  as  the  German.  I  will  make  but  one 

253 


John  Fiske 

exception  to  this  —  the  dear  English,  which,  thank 
Heaven,  we  know  already.  But  next  to  your  own 
language  you  can  learn  no  other  which  will  so 
richly  repay  you  as  German."  1 

Miss  Brooks  modestly  told  him  that  she  had 
"a  smattering  of  Latin,  a  little  French  and  German, 
some  geometry,  a  trifle  of  history,  and  more  or  less 
of  current  literature.  ' '  He  responds :  — 

"That  is  very  promising.  Don't  laugh!  I  am  in 
earnest.  It  looks  chaotic  to  be  sure,  but  the  wand 
of  the  Positivist  conjurer  can  bring  shape  and  order 
into  the  mass.  'A  smattering  of  Latin'  is  all  you 
need  for  my  purposes; '  a  little  French  and  German ' 
can  soon  become  much  French  and  German ; '  some 
geometry '  can  grow  into  a  perception  of  the  posi- 
tion and  scope  of  mathematics  and  into  wide 
views  of  space,  etc.;  'a  trifle  of  history*  may  de- 
velop, imperceptibly,  into  a  knowledge  of  the  un- 
folding of  the  human  intellect  in  all  ages  and  coun- 
tries. I  know  I  could  do  all  this  if  I  were  with  you. 
Besides,  I  could  tell  you '  anecdotes'  of  any  or  every 
science,  which  would  be  sweeter  than  fairy-legend." 

Speaking  of  his  own  linguistic  acquirements  he 
says:  — 

"I  can't  talk  in  any  language  but  my  own;  but 
I  read  in  German,  French,  Spanish,  Italian,  Portu- 
guese, Latin,  Greek,  and  Anglo-Saxon.  Then  with 
hard  study  I  can  decipher  sentence  by  sentence 

1  When  Miss  Brooks  was  studying  Italian  with  Mr.  Fiske  dur- 
ing their  engagement,  he  carefully  preserved  in  his  notebook  all 
the  Italian  exercises  written  by  her;  the  lessons  came  to  an  end 
with  the  reading  of  I  Prcmessi  Sposi,  by  Alessandro  Manzoni. 

254 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

Dutch,  Danish,  Swedish,  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  and 
Sanskrit;  and  there  are  some  few  which  I  have 
dipped  into  without  doing  much,  either  because 
they  have  little  literature,  or  because  I  have  no 
time  for  them  —  Zend,  Gothic,  Wallachian,  and 
Provencal.  Persian  and  Arabic  I  long  to  know,  but 
I  despair  of  ever  having  the  time  to  learn  them; 
there  is  so  much  to  be  done  in  other  things.  Before 
long  anatomy,  physiology,  and  kindred  sciences 
will  engross  me,  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  to  bid 
a  last  farewell  to  philology/1 

Even  at  this  early  age,  he  has  a  clear  concep- 
tion of  the  need  of  an  underlying  philosophy  which 
shall  unify  all  knowledge;  hence  this  fine  passage:  — 

"There  are  so  many  things  to  be  learned,  that  at 
first  sight  they  may  seem  like  a  confused  chaos. 
The  different  departments  of  knowledge  may  ap- 
pear so  separate  and  conflicting,  and  yet  so  mingled 
and  interdependent,  as  to  render  it  a  matter  of 
doubt  where  the  beginning  should  be  made.  But 
when  we  have  come  to  a  true  philosophy,  and  make 
that  our  stand-point,  all  things  become  clear.  We 
know  what  things  to  learn,  and  what,  in  the  in- 
finite mass  of  things  to  leave  unlearned  —  and  then 
the  Universe  becomes  clear  and  harmonious.1' 

Fiske  is  greatly  pleased  to  know  that  Miss 
Brooks  wishes  to  follow  him  in  his  scholarly  pursuits, 
and  he  tells  her  how  he  would  have  her  follow  him. 
The  passage  in  which  he  tells  her  this  is  worthy  of 
special  note,  in  view  of  their  intellectual  compan- 
ionship, as  we  are  to  see  its  future  unfolding:  — 

255 


John  Fiske 

"  Believe  me,  these  pursuits  are  sweet  and  pleas- 
ant as  no  others  are :  they  never  weary,  they  never 
satiate.  Yet  for  all  that  I  would  not  have  my  dar- 
ling a  book- worm.  I  would  not  care  to  have  her 
immensely  learned  and  wise  —  do  you  appreciate 
and  not  misunderstand  the  feeling?  I  would  have 
her  'follow  me,'  as  she  says,  'in  my  pursuits.'  I 
would  have  her  sympathy  in  them.  I  would  im- 
part to  her  the  ideas  which  keep  coming  into 
my  mind.  Then  I  would  love  her  so  dearly,  and 
honor  and  respect  her  so  deeply  and  truly,  that  the 
thought  of  her  —  that  her  blest  influence  would 
keep  me  ever  from  the  wrong,  and  call  forth  all 
that  is  best  and  holiest  in  me.  God  grant  that  it 
may  be  so." 

Such  a  correspondence  (and  these  extracts  in- 
dicate the  character  of  the  thought  which  imbued 
the  letters)  led,  as  might  be  expected,  to  an  early 
engagement.  On  the  return  of  Miss  Brooks  in 
March,  1862,  she  spent  a  few  days  in  Boston  and 
the  engagement  was  announced.  On  her  return  to 
Petersham  the  correspondence  is  resumed  and  we 
have  further  revelations  of  her  inspiring  influence 
upon  his  mind.  His  thought  turns  to  the  means  of 
gaining  a  livelihood  for  them  both  after  his  gradu- 
ation, and  very  naturally,  with  his  youthful  opti- 
mism, he  looks  forward  to  engaging  in  some  form 
of  literary  work.  The  following  passage  reflects  his 
state  of  mind :  — 

11 1  am  going  to  work  now,  and  the  thought  of  you 
will  inspire  me  to  new  exertion.  I  am  going  to 

256 


Engagement  to  Miss  Brooks 

study  more  thoroughly  than  ever  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, history  and  mythology,  and  trace  the  con- 
fluence of  ancient  philosophies  and  theologies  into 
the  great  stream  of  thought  which  issued  in  Chris- 
tianity; then  the  rise,  culmination  and  decline  of 
dogmatic  Christianity,  till  its  forms  fell  away  and 
the  deep  religion  which  lay  beneath  them  was  taken 
up  by  Positive  philosophers  and  grew  into  the 
world  religion  announced  by  Herbert  Spencer,  the 
greatest  of  the  sons  of  men!  Won't  it  be  glorious 
when  I  can  pursue  these  studies  with  you  by  my 
vside,  and  some  day  write  a  history  of  the  religious 
development  of  mankind.  I  am  confident  that  the 
happy  time  will  come.  No  use  in  despairing.  What 
a  book  I  could  write  if  you  were  sitting  by  me. 
'  On  dira  dans  mille  ans,  "  0, 1'ceuvre  vive  et  tendre, 
brulante  encore!"  Mais,  c'est  qu'elle  etait  la!' 
Don't  you  believe  it  is  so?  I  will  show  you  some 
day." 

At  this  time  his  friend  Roberts  had  also  become 
engaged,  and  the  high  philosophico-religious  feeling 
that  animates  both  young  men  finds  expression  in 
the  following  terms.  After  the  departure  of  Miss 
Brooks  for  her  home  at  Petersham,  Fiske  writes 
Roberts  thus :  — 

"The  last  twelve  days  have  been  by  far  the 
happiest  of  my  life.  I  know  now  what  it  is  to  be 
loved.  I  am  at  last  SAVED.  My  religion  is  the  reli- 
gion of  love.  My  God  is  the  Eternal  incarnate  in 
my  beloved.  I  hate  this  infernal  college  life  of  poll- 
debauchery  which  is  going  on  about  me,  and  look 
forward  to  the  time  when  we  shall  together  lead 
the  life  of  the  Eternal  man." 

257 


John  Fiske 
Roberts  promptly  responded:  — 

"  It  is  with  the  greatest  pleasure  that  I  read  your 
letter,  and  I  again  feel  that  we  both  have  the  same 
noble  aims,  the  same  ambitious  purposes,  the  same 
religion,  the  same  creed  —  but  not  the  same  Gods. 
For  I  perceive  that  this  religion  is  polytheistic,  con- 
sidered socially;  but  considered  with  reference  to 
the  individual  worshipper,  monotheistic.  This  is  the 
grand  reconciliation  of  the  past  with  the  present — 
the  grand  paradox  of  the  universe.  Man  pronounces 
a  creed  which  is  more  mystic  than  the  Nicene  — 
a  creed  wherein  not  three  only,  but  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  pure  and  holy  Beings  are  confounded  in  the 
person  of  the  Eternal  Woman.  But  the  worshipper 
finds  his  Saviour,  his  Redeemer,  his  Evangel  in  that 
one  Divinity  of  his  free  choice,  before  whom  there 
are  no  other  Gods." 

Space  forbids  further  extracts  from  these  interest- 
ing letters.  The  ennobling  influence  which  entered 
into  Fiske's  soul  through  his  engagement  to  Miss 
Brooks  is  apparent  during  the  remainder  of  his  col- 
lege life,  broadening  his  sympathies  and  heighten- 
ing his  purposes,  and  in  the  years  to  follow  we 
are  to  trace  it  as  an  enriching  influence  to  the  very 
end. 

In  closing  the  account  of  this  episode  in  Fiske's 
college  life,  it  only  remains  to  be  added  that  Peters- 
ham soon  became  endeared  to  him  beyond  all  other 
places;  that  he  made  occasional  visits  to  Miss 
Brooks  which  involved  heavy  penalties  against  his 
"honors"  for  recitations  and  religious  services 

258 


His  College  Rank 

unduly  "cut,"  while  Petersham  absorbed  the  princi- 
pal part  of  his  subsequent  vacations.  In  the  years 
to  come,  we  shall  see  that  in  his  personal  calendar 
of  memorable  days,  the  I3th  of  September  was  al- 
ways held  in  tender  regard  as  the  anniversary  of  his 
romantic  journey  to  Petersham,  when  to  him,  foot- 
sore and  weary,  its  beauties  and  its  interests  were 
first  revealed. 

i 

And  so,  faithfully  going  through  his  college  ex- 
ercises, completing  his  essay  on  the  "Evolution  of 
Language"  for  the  "North  American  Review," 
reading  widely  on  scientific  and  philosophic  sub- 
jects, following  with  great  interest  Grant's  cam- 
paign in  Mississippi  as  well  as  the  movements  of 
the  contending  armies  around  Washington,  the 
while  looking  forward  with  radiant  hope  to  the 
"large  excitement  that  the  coming  years  would 
yield"  when  he  should  be  united  to  the  object  of 
his  affections,  Fiske's  senior  year  at  Harvard  comes 
to  its  close,  and  on  the  I5th  of  July,  1863,  he  was 
graduated  with  his  class,  while  the  great  Union  vic- 
tories at  Vicksburg  and  at  Gettysburg  were  echo- 
ing through  the  land. 

At  his  graduation  Fiske  supposed  that  owing  to 
his  marks  he  stood  near  the  foot  of  his  class,  and  he 
did  not  care  enough  about  the  matter  to  find  out 
what  his  rank  was.  Several  years  after,  he  was  in 
the  Dean's  office  overhauling  the  books,  when  he 

259 


John  Fiske 

came  across  the  records  of  his  class  and  he  writes 
his  mother :  — 

"  I  found  I  stood  47th  among  112  and  my  name 
ought  to  have  been  printed:  eleven  names  were 
printed  which  stood  lower  than  mine.  The  amount 
of  my  deductions  for  absences,  etc.,  was  above  5000. 
Omitting  these  from  the  amount,  and  calculating 
my  rank  on  my  marks  on  my  examinations  alone, 
I  should  have  stood  first  for  senior  year,  and 
fourth  or  fifth  for  the  whole  course.  My  average 
percentage  for  senior  year  was  almost  unprece- 
dentedly  high.  But  the  measles  spoiled  it:  I  lost  six 
weeks  and  never  cared  enough  about  it  to  make 
them  up." 


CHAPTER  X 

FAILS  TO  GET  POSITION  AS  TEACHER  OR  AS  TUTOR  AT 
HARVARD —  ENTERS  THE  HARVARD  LAW  SCHOOL 
—  ADMITTED  TO  THE  BAR  —  HIS  GENERAL  READ- 
ING —  OPENING  OF  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SPEN- 
CER—  MARRIAGE 

1863-1864 

DURING  the  latter  half  of  his  senior  year  Fiske's 
thought  was  much  given  to  the  choice  of  a  profes- 
sion. Spurning  the  thought  of  being  dependent 
upon  his  mother,  and  at  the  same  time  desirous  of 
being  married,  the  letters  reveal  the  balancing  in 
his  mind  of  the  comparative  advantages  and  dis- 
advantages of  the  two  professions  —  law  and  teach- 
ing. Each  was  considered  from  two  viewpoints  — 
as  a  means  of  earning  a  livelihood,  and  as  giving  at 
the  same  time  opportunity  for  the  pursuit  of  his 
scientific  and  philosophic  studies.  The  law  was  the 
choice  of  his  mother,  while  his  own  preference  was 
decidedly  for  teaching.  Following  his  own  inclina- 
tions, he  secured  before  graduation  commendations 
for  his  scholarship  from  Professors  Peabody,  Low- 
ell, Child,  Gurney,  and  Bowen,  and  also  one  from 
Mr.  George  Ticknor.  He  was  somewhat  surprised 
at  getting  a  commendation  from  Professor  Bowen, 
and  he  says  regarding  it:  "Professor  Bowen  is  a 
fellow  who  loves  to  argue  and  likes  opposition,  and 

261 


John  Fiske 

he  has  taken  quite  a  fancy  to  me  because  I  pitch 
into  him." 

Thus  equipped,  the  securing  of  a  good  position  as 
instructor  in  the  classic  or  modern  languages,  or  in 
history,  in  a  high  school  or  in  a  well-established 
private  school,  did  not  appear  to  him  as  a  matter 
likely  to  be  attended  with  much  difficulty.  He  also 
felt  quite  confident  that  his  scholarship  and  the 
personal  good-will  of  Professors  Peabody,  Lowell, 
Child,  and  Gurney  would  secure  him  a  position  as 
tutor  at  the  college  should  he  desire  to  begin  teach- 
ing there. 

We  have  seen  that  during  the  latter  half  of  his 
senior  year,  he  was  busily  engaged  upon  an  essay 
on  the  "Evolution  of  Language"  for  the  "North 
American  Review."  While  finishing  this  essay,  he 
sends  Miss  Brooks  the  following  declaration  of  his 
purpose  to  push  the  teaching  project  as  soon  as  the 
essay  is  off  his  hands :  — 

A  MOVE  SOON  To  BE  MADE 

A  SCHOOL 
To  BE  TAKEN 


Wonders 
To  be  done 

But  without  experience  in  teaching,  the  getting 
of  a  position  as  instructor  that  would  warrant  his 
being  married  was  not  a  matter  of  such  easy  accom- 
plishment as  appeared  to  the  student  Fiske.  His 

262 


Choice  of  Profession 

first  contact  with  the  conditions  of  practical  life 
brought  him  to  a  distinct  realization  that  "expe- 
rience" was  not  wholly  a  philosophic  term  and 
limited  to  the  theory  of  knowledge;  but  that  it  em- 
bodied something  tangible,  something  negotiable  in 
the  interchange  of  social  service  which  takes  place 
when  a  person  earns  his  living.  • 

Before  his  graduation  Fiske  made  application  to 
Dr.  Francis  Gardner,  the  Principal  of  the  Boston 
Latin  School,  and  to  Dr.  J.  D.  Philbrick,  the  Super- 
intendent of  the  Boston  Public  Schools,  for  any 
position  as  instructor  in  the  languages  or  in  his- 
tory at  their  disposal.  His  letters  of  commendation 
and  his  modest,  scholarly  bearing  secured  for  him 
courteous  consideration;  and  it  was  while  pressing 
his  case  in  Boston  that  he  learned  of  a  vacancy 
in  the  High  School  in  Charlestown,  which  had  not 
then  been  annexed  to  Boston.  It  appears  that  he 
applied  to  the  Committee  of  the  Charlestown  High 
School  for  the  position  in  July.  His  application  was 
well  received.  There  were  twelve  applicants  —  all 
recent  graduates  —  and  he  was  made  to  feel  that  he 
was  the  preference  of  the  Committee.  He  was  much 
elated.  The  action  of  the  Committee  was  post- 
poned from  time  to  time  during  the  summer,  and 
until  early  in  September,  when  a  fresh  candidate 
appeared,  —  one  who  had  had  several  years'  expe- 
rience in  teaching,  —  and  he  was  elected. 

During  the  period  of  suspense  Fiske  was  at 
Petersham  and  at  Middletown,  and  plans  for  his 

263 


John  Fiske 

marriage  and  for  settling  down  to  a  life  of  strenu- 
ous labor  as  teacher,  student,  and  occasional  writer 
on  the  many  philosophic  questions  that  were  en- 
gaging public  attention,  were  much  in  his  mind.  It 
disappointed  him  greatly  to  learn  —  as  he  did  dur- 
ing this  period  —  that  one  line  of  teaching,  which 
he  felt  sure  he  could  fall  back  upon  in  case  of  ne- 
cessity, was  not  open  to  him  —  professional  work  at 
Harvard  College.  He  consulted  Professor  Gurney 
about  applying  for  a  tutorship.  Professor  Gurney 
frankly  told  him  that  his  application  would  not 
be  favorably  received  in  the  minds  of  some  of  the 
faculty ;  that  his  reputation  as  a  pronounced  Dar- 
winian would  preclude  any  consideration  of  his  ex- 
ceptional qualifications  as  a  tutor. 

It  appears  that  during  these  few  weeks  of  un- 
certain waiting  and  partial  discouragement,  he 
found  a  sort  of  solace  as  well  as  mental  recreation 
in  reading  the  Waverley  Novels.  He  gave  himself 
with  perfect  abandon  to  the  charm  of  the  "  Scotch 
Romancer/'  After  reading  "The  Heart  of  Mid- 
Lothian"  and  "The  Bride  of  Lammermoor"  he 
writes  his  mother  thus :  — 

"I  am  almost  or  quite  as  much  delighted  with 
Scott  as  with  Dickens.  What  a  rich  treat  I  shall 
have  in  the  score  or  so  of  novels  I  am  now  going  to 
read!  In  view  of  the  delight  now  in  store  for  me  I 
am  almost  inclined  to  forgive  myself  for  not  hav- 
ing looked  into  Scott  before.  What  a  great  writer 
he  is!" 

264 


Choice  of  Profession 

The  other  reading  he  indulged  in  during  this 
period  was  Spencer's  "Biology,"  which  was  then 
appearing  in  numbers.  He  has  secured  a  photo- 
graph of  Spencer,  and  he  gives  his  mother  the  im- 
pression the  portrait  makes  upon  his  mind :  — 

"Spencer's  face  is  a  magnificent  one.  There  is 
something  not  quite  perfect  about  the  mouth;  but 
the  eyes  are  like  those  of  a  lynx,  and  the  grandest  I 
ever  saw.  Taken  all  together,  the  effect  of  the  head 
and  face  is  as  imposing  as  Newton's;  while  at  the 
same  time  the  expression  is  gentle,  humorous,  and 
lovable,  in  the  extreme.11 

We  also  get  from  the  letters  of  this  waiting  period 
other  glimpses  of  the  great  Civil  War  struggle,  par- 
ticularly what  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  decis- 
ive victories  of  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg  —  how 
Boston  and  Cambridge  were  alive  with  rockets  and 
candles;  how  the  draft  riots  in  New  York  made 
Fiske  apprehensive  for  his  mother's  house  there; 
how  the  draft  was  being  enforced  in  Cambridge; 
how  Fiske  had  escaped,  while  a  "  secesh "  class- 
mate who  had  ridiculed  Lincoln  and  had  jeered  at 
"Mr.  U.  S.  Grant,"  had  been  drafted;  and  how 
"Copperheads,"  believing  that  Lee  would  capture 
Philadelphia,  had  bought  gold  at  $1.45  which  they 
were  now  selling  at  $1.28. 

Failing  to  get  a  position  as  instructor  in  a  high 
school,  and  finding  that  he  was  persona  non  grata 
for  a  tutorship  at  Harvard,  Fiske  realized  that  he 
must  look  to  some  other  profession  than  that  of 

265 


John  Fiske 

teaching  as  a  means  of  support  and  that  his  mar- 
riage might  be  indefinitely  postponed.  He  now 
turned  his  attention  seriously  to  the  law.  All 
through  his  college  course  his  mother  and  Mr. 
Stoughton  had  held  before  him  the  study  and 
practice  of  the  law  as  a  proper  sequence  to  his 
collegiate  studies.  He  had,  however,  steadily  re- 
fused to  entertain  the  thought  of  giving  up  the  pur- 
suit of  scientific  knowledge  in  the  very  interesting 
era  that  was  opening  before  him. 

But  now  that  he  was  graduated  and  found  him- 
self facing  the  question  of  a  self-supporting  profes- 
sion, with  the  desire  of  being  married  uppermost  in 
his  mind,  and  with  the  profession  of  teaching  not 
practically  available  to  him,  he  turned  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  law  as  offering  the  best  way  out  of 
the  difficulties  that  confronted  him .  He  reviewed 
the  whole  situation  calmly,  and  after  consulting 
with  Professor  Gurney  and  Judge  Curtis,  he  writes 
his  mother,  under  date  of  September  19, 1863, — two 
days  after  the  Charlestown  decision,  — as  follows : — 

4 'As  soon  as  I  have  thought  things  over  a  little 
and  discussed  with  Abby,  I  want  to  come  to  New 
York,  if  it  is  convenient,  and  talk  with  both  you 
and  Mr.  Stoughton.  Writing  is  a  poor  means  of 
communication.  I  am  quite  sure  that  my  present 
views  will  please  you  and  Mr.  Stoughton;  and  Mr. 
Gurney  thinks  it  of  the  first  importance  that  I  go 
to  New  York  in  person  as  soon  as  I  have  seen 
Abby.  Don't  telegraph  for  me,  but  let  me  take 
time  and  be  mysterious  for  a  few  days.  I  think, 

266 


Chooses  the  Law 

perhaps,  you  will  not  be  sorry  at  my  failure,  when 
you  hear  what  it  has  brought  me  to." 

After  a  full  consideration  of  the  situation  with 
Miss  Brooks,  and  with  her  hearty  consent,  he  de- 
cided to  accept  the  law,  and  he  went  to  New  York 
to  see  his  mother  and  Mr.  Stoughton.1  He  was  re- 
ceived with  special  cordiality.  His  decision  was 
highly  commended,  and  he  was  encouraged  to 
think  that  the  law,  in  some  of  the  higher  phases 
of  its  practice,  would  afford  ample  scope  for  the 
employment  of  his  eminently  philosophical  and  ju- 
dicial mind.  That  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stoughton  were 

1  In  this  connection  the  following  letter  from  Judge  Curtis  to  Mr. 
Stoughton  is  of  interest:  — 

BOSTON,  September  22,  1863. 
Dear  Stoughton,  — 

Some  time  last  spring  we  had  a  conversation  about  the  choice  of 
a  profession  for  John,  and  I  then  told  you,  if  I  remember,  quite  de- 
cidedly that  I  did  not  think  he  had  best  study  law.  My  reasons,  I 
believe,  were,  that  I  thought  he  was  better  adapted  for  a  teacher,  a 
profession  now  of  much  importance  and  of  increasing  consideration. 
I  have  lately  had  some  further  means  of  judging,  from  intercourse 
with  him  and  conversations  with  Roberts  about  him,  and  I  think  I 
ought  to  write  to  you  and  say  that  I  believe  I  expressed  too  confident 
an  opinion,  and  that  I  am  inclined  to  change  it.  I  should  trust 
Roberts's  opinion  rather  than  my  own.  From  conversation  with 
him  I  suppose  he  is  getting  much  inclined  to  study  law.  His  friend, 
Professor  Gurney,  strongly  advises  it,  and  Roberts  is  very  much  of 
the  same  opinion.  And  having  reflected  a  good  deal  upon  it,  I  cer- 
tainly should  not  dissuade  him  if  I  would  be  asked  what  my  opinion 
is.  I  have  therefore  thought  I  ought  to  write  to  you  and  say  that 
you  should  not  be  influenced  by  anything  I  have  heretofore  said  to 
the  contrary. 

Yours  always, 

B.  R.  CURTIS. 
E.  W.  STOUGHTON,  ESQ., 
NEW  YORK. 

267 


John  Fiske 

greatly  pleased  at  the  turn  his  thought  had  taken  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  they  made  ample  pro- 
vision for  his  taking  a  two  years'  course  of  study  at 
the  Harvard  Law  School,  at  the  same  time  assur- 
ing him  that  on  his  admission  to  the  bar  —  for 
which  the  course  at  the  Law  School  was  a  prepa- 
ration —  he  should  have  their  hearty  assent  to  his 
marriage. 

Fiske  returned  to  Cambridge  in  a  happy  state  of 
mind.  He  now  had  a  definite  purpose  before  him, 
the  accomplishment  of  which  was  to  take  prece- 
dence of  all  other  interests.  His  entrance  at  the 
Law  School  bears  date  of  October  7,  1863. 

As  the  Harvard  Law  School  was  at  this  time  the 
leading  law  school  of  the  country,  a  glance  at  its 
course  of  study  and  its  requirements  is  not  without 
interest.  The  course  of  study  embraced  "the  vari- 
ous branches  of  the  Common  Law  and  of  Equity; 
Admiralty;  Commercial,  International  and  Consti- 
tutional Law,  and  the  Jurisprudence  of  the  United 
States."  There  were  but  three  instructors  or  pro- 
fessors, and  the  instruction  was  mainly  by  lectures. 
Students  elected  their  own  lines  of  study,  could 
enter  at  any  time  and  without  examination;  and 
upon  the  certificate  and  recommendation  of  the 
faculty  —  and  on  payment  of  all  dues  to  the 
college —  could  receive,  without  any  examination 
whatever,  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Laws.  The  only 
requirement  was  with  reference  to  the  degree,  and 
this  was  that  eighteen  months'  study  of  the  law 

268 


At  Harvard  Law  School 

should  be  the  condition  of  its  award.  There  seems 
to  have  been  a  genial  "go-as-you-please"  air  about 
the  whole  school. 

The  letters  to  his  mother  give  many  incidents 
connected  with  his  settling  down  to  his  new  line  of 
work  —  such  as  arrangements  for  convenient  study, 
allotment  of  hours  to  his  legal  studies,  his  enthusi- 
asm for  these  studies,  his  provisions  for  scientific, 
historic,  and  philosophic  reading,  as  well  as  for  in- 
cidental work.  We  will  note  a  few  of  them. 

During  the  latter  half  of  his  senior  year  we  saw 
him  writing  his  essay  on  the  "Evolution  of  Lan- 
guage." The  essay  was  published  in  the  "North 
American  Review"  for  October,  1863,  and  he  re- 
ceived as  payment  for  it  the  very  moderate  sum 
of  forty  dollars.  This  money  he  appropriated  to 
his  convenience  in  working,  and  he  gives  his  mother 
the  particulars  as  follows :  — 

"  My  desk  came  yesterday.  It  is  the  most  beauti- 
ful piece  of  furniture  almost  that  I  ever  saw.  I  take 
the  more  pride  in  it  that  it  is  peculiarly  the  fruit  of 
my  own  brain.  In  the  first  place,  I  paid  for  it  — 
within  $3  —  by  writing  that  article ;  and  2nly ,  I 
designed  the  whole  thing,  leaving  nothing  to  the 
cabinet-maker  but  to  put  my  ideas  into  wooden 
shape.  I  take  more  pleasure  in  it  than  in  almost 
any  chattel  I  ever  possessed." 

In  another  place  he  tells  his  mother  that  he  has 
"got  a  Worcester's  Dictionary,  for  in  reading  law, 
a  lexicon  is  an  absolute  necessity.  I  have  occasion 

269 


John  Fiske 

to  use  it  at  least  two  dozen  times  a  day.   I  had  no 
English  dictionary  before/' 

That  he  began  his  new  line  of  work  in  his  usual 
systematic  way  is  shown  by  his  general  plan,  which 
he  gives  as  follows :  — 

"  My  plan  is  to  study  law  from  8  A.M.  to  4^  P.M., 
then  go  to  the  gymnasium  and  bowling  alley  till  6, 
and  then  have  the  evening  for  side  study.  As  soon 
as  I  get  a  little  more  settled,  I  shall  set  apart  some 
special  time  every  week  for  writing  letters." 

What  was  the  nature  of  his  side  study  is  partially 
revealed  in  the  following  incidental  passage :  — 

"George  l  has  been  here  all  the  afternoon  and 
evening,  and  we  have  been  discussing  a  little  law, 
and  reading  together  about  Cause  and  Effect,  and 
trying  to  ascertain  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the 
Earth's  perihelion  through  the  vernal  equinox."2 

In  the  beginning,  his  comments  on  his  legal 
studies  are  of  interest,  especially  upon  the  classic 
11  Commentaries"  of  Blackstone  which  came  first  in 
his  order  of  legal  study.  In  an  early  letter  to  his 
mother,  he  says :  — 

"  Since  Wednesday  morning  I  have  been  steadily 
engaged  on  Blackstone,  the  first  volume  of  which 
I  shall  finish  to-morrow.  Then  I  shall  commence 
Story  on  Bailments  and  read  it  and  Blackstone  to- 

1  His  friend  George  Litch  Roberts. 

2  In  a  letter  to  Miss  Brooks,  referring  to  this  astronomical  calcula- 
tion, he  says:  "We  found  the  year,  viz.  3987  B.C.,  but  couldn't  suc- 
ceed in  ascertaining  the  exact  day." 

270 


At  Harvard  Law  School 

gether.  I  am  perfectly  enraptured  with  Blackstone. 
I  scarcely  ever  read  anything  so  interesting  in  my 
life.  I  get  so  engrossed  in  it  that  I  can  hardly  bear 
to  leave  it  to  go  to  bed.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
this  notion  of  the  law  being  'dry'  is  all  humbug, 
and  that  I  shall  find  it  as  attractive  as  any  study  I 
ever  pursued." 

And  a  few  days  later  he  writes:  — 

"I  have  been  working  hard  at  law  all  this  week 
—  have  got  well  along  in  the  second  volume  of 
Blackstone,  and  by  to-night  shall  be  half  through 
Story  on  Bailments.  I  have  also  read  'Rob  Roy/ 
which  probably  closes  my  account  with  Scott  for 
the  present  —  barring  his  remaining  '  Tales  of  a 
Grandfather/  I  never  knew  what  I  was  talking 
about  when  I  professed  a  dislike  for  the  law.  The 
subject  of  'Contingent  Remainders/  is  said  to  be 
one  of  the  driest  in  the  whole  science,  but  from  what 
I  get  of  it  in  Blackstone  I  think  it  perfectly  fascin- 
ating; and  as  for  Bailments,  it  is  as  pretty  reading  as 
Trigonometry/' 

To  Miss  Brooks  he  writes  in  the  same  strain:  — 

"  I  am  really  getting  in  love  with  the  law.  My 
scholarly  habits  are  beginning  to  tell.  Instead  of 
taking  it  up  with  a  listless  dilettante  air  like  those 
fellows  who  don't  know  how  to  study,  I  am  going 
right  into  it  just  as  I  have  been  wont  to  go  into 
other  things  'head  over  heels/  I  think  I  have  got 
into  my  true  sphere  now." 

By  the  end  of  October  Fiske  is  completely  settled 
in  his  former  student  rooms,  Holyoke  Place,  Cam- 

271 


John  Fiske 

bridge,  and  is  fully  "squared  away"  in  his  attack 
upon  the  law,  the  while  keeping  up  his  scientific, 
historic,  and  philosophic  studies;  and  at  the  same 
time  watching  with  intense  interest  the  movements 
of  the  contending  armies  in  Virginia  and  eastern 
Tennessee.1  From  the  letters  we  have  these  further 
glimpses  of  his  state  of  mind,  his  surroundings,  and 
his  manner  of  working. 

In  a  letter  to  Miss  Brooks  he  says:  — 

"The  day  is  perfectly  divine,  and  the  sunlight 
just  beginning  to  creep  in  at  the  bay-window  on  the 
plants,  looks  so  mild  and  dreamily  beautiful  that 
it  makes  me  feel  perfectly  happy  —  like  one  of 
Tennyson's  Lotus-Eaters.  I  think  myself  in  that 
blessed  land  — 

'In  which  it  seemed  always  afternoon.' 

"  These  beautiful  October  days  are  the  pleasant- 
est  in  the  year  to  me.  Now  that  I  have  begun  to 
quote  poetry,  and  since  I  am  smoking  my  after- 
dinner  pipe,  let  me  quote  Scott's  exquisite  lines 
about  tobacco:  — 

'The  Indian  leaf  doth  briefly  burn; 
So  doth  man's  strength  to  weakness  turn; 
The  fire  of  youth  extinguished  quite, 
Comes  age,  like  embers  dry  and  white.'  " 

And  to  his  mother  he  writes:  — 

"  I  am  all  alone;  nobody  comes  to  hinder  me,  and 
so  the  coast  is  clear.  I  mean  to  make  it  a  rule  to  read 

1  To  Miss  Brooks  he  sends  diagrams  of  the  military  movements 
in  the  two  fields  of  operation. 

272 


Visited  by  E.  L.  Youmans 

one  volume  of  Law  and  one  volume  of  Science  or 
History  every  week,  except  when  I  write  instead 
of  extra  reading.  This  can  be  done  in  6  hours  per 
day  for  Law,  and  4  for  Science.  I  am  going  to 
study  like  a  biquadrated  Joseph  Scaliger." 

But  his  quiet  life  as  an  isolated  student  at  law 
was  not  to  continue.  His  two  essays  —  the  one  on 
Buckle  and  the  other  on  " Language" — had  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  thoughtful  minds  in  Eng- 
land and  at  Cambridge,  and  it  may  properly  be 
said  that  the  progressive  thought  of  the  time  sought 
him  out,  and  in  two  notable  ways  that  had  a  marked 
effect  upon  his  young',  expanding  mind.  The  man- 
ner in  which  his  quiet  student  life  was  invaded  is 
given  in  a  letter  to  his  mother,  November  2,  1863. 
The  letter  covers  five  closely  written  pages,  and  evi- 
dently was  written  at  different  times.  He  writes :  — 

"  I  have  a  great  deal  to  say  and  must  be  brief  on 
each  subject.  Youmans,  the  author  of  the  Chemis- 
try, has  called  upon  me.  He  got  Buckle  republished 
in  this  country,  was  attracted  by  my  article,  and 
tried  to  discover  the  author,  but  could  n't.  He 
knows  Spencer,  Lewes,  Mill,  Tyndall,  Huxley, 
Bain,  Lyell,  Morell,  and  all  the  great  thinkers.  He 
told  Spencer  that  my  article  on  Buckle  was  the 
ablest  one  that  had  been  written  on  that  subject. 
Spencer  wanted  to  see  the  article,  and  told  You- 
mans to  hunt  up  the  author  by  all  means.  Lately 
Youmans  saw  my  last  article,  found  out  who  wrote 
it,  and  came  out  to  see  me.  He  wishes  me  to  write 
to  Spencer  at  once  and  says  that  both  Spencer  and 

273 


John  Fiske 

Lewes  want  to  know  the  author  of  the  Essay  on 
Buckle.  He  tells  me  to  send  Spencer  both  articles, 
and  await  a  reply. 

"  Youmans  manages  the  publication  of  Spencer's 
serial.  He  is  going  to  issue  an  edition  of  Spencer's 
Essays  and  wants  me  to  write  an  Introduction  for 
it,  which  I  have  agreed  to  do  —  a  popular  thing, 
you  know,  about  ten  pages,  for  American  readers. 

"Youmans  promised  to  send  a  copy  of  Draper's 
work,1  and  if  he  thinks  to  send  it,  I  think  I  can  write 
an  article  on  it  in  time  for  the  April  number  of  the 
'  North  American  Review/  Youmans  came  out  and 
spent  the  afternoon  with  me  yesterday,  and  George 
and  I  went  in  and  took  supper  with  himself,  wife 
and  sister  at  the  Parker  House." 

Fiske  interrupts  his  narrative  of  Youmans's  visit 
to  speak  of  the  change  of  editors  of  the  "North 
American  Review/'  and  what  the  change  signifies 
to  him. 

"The  'North  American*  has  again  changed 
hands.  Peabody  is  superseded  by  C.  E.  Norton  and 
J.  R.  Lowell.  Norton  has  just  sent  down  to  me  to 
come  and  see  him  at  once,  for  he  wants  me  to  keep 
him  supplied  with  critical  notices  and  also  to  write 
an  article  whenever  I  have  time.  The  '  Review '  is 
going  to  give  double  pay,  viz.:  $2.  a  page  instead  of 
$1.00.  Of  course  I  shall  accept.  I  am  going  over  to 
see  him  as  soon  as  I  have  mailed  this.  I  think  I  am 
being  taken  up  in  great  style.  Bully!  is  n't  it?" 

1  History  of  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  by  John  William 
Draper,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Chemistry,  University  of  New 
York. 

274 


Visited  by  E.  L.  Youmans 

That  the  visit  of  Youmans  was  a  predominating 
influence  in  his  mind,  and  that  Youmans  gave 
him  much  interesting  information  in  regard  to  the 
personnel  of  his  English  friends,  is  evident  from  the 
closing  paragraphs  of  this  letter,  where  the  follow- 
ing particulars  in  regard  to  Spencer,  Lewes,  and 
George  Eliot  are  abruptly  introduced:  — 

"  Spencer  is  forty- two  years  old  —  bachelor.  — 
Lewes  is  forty-six,  married  to  Marian  Evans;  a  big 
imperturbable  Englishman;  has  written  'History 
of  Philosophy,'  'Comte's  Philosophy  of  the  Sci- 
ences/ 'Life  of  Goethe,'  'Philosophy  of  Common 
Life,'  —  (his  chef  d'&uvre)  'Studies  in  Animal  Life/ 
'Seaside  Studies'  —  the  last  I  have  read  two  or 
three  times  —  also  a  Spanish  drama,  '  Ranthorpe, ' 
a  novel,  and  several  dramas.  He  is  now  writing  a 
1  History  of  Science/  Mrs.  Lewes  has  made  $35,000 
off  of 'Romola/ 

"  Spencer  has  been  a  Civil  Engineer  by  profession 
—  has  never  been  to  college  but  is  by  all  compari- 
son the  most  learned  man  living.  His  power  of 
concentration  is  so  intense  as  to  be  dangerous,  for  it 
brings  the  blood  rushing  to  the  head  so  that  he  has 
to  desist  from  work  and  go  out  and  play.  He  is  six 
feet  high,  rather  slender,  very  graceful,  prodigious 
head,  quite  bald,  voice  very  melodious  and  rich; 
temperament  very  nervous  and  excitable.  You- 
mans calls  him  the  kindest  and  dearest  old  fellow 
that  ever  lived ;  says  his  conversational  powers  are 
absolutely  miraculous;  most  magnetic  man  he  ever 
saw.  Takes  great  interest  in  our  war  and  sides  with 
the  North.  Gets  mad  if  anybody  says  a  word  for 
the  South!  bangs  into  the  London  Times  and  the 

275 


John  Fiske 

aristocracy  for  their  course  in  the  matter.  You- 
mans  says  all  the  scientific  men  abroad  are  for  the 
North.  Nobody  for  the  South  but  old  fogies  like 
Brougham." 

Youmans  was  a  very  inspiring  man.  His  life  had 
been  a  struggle  against  obstacles  that  would  have 
daunted  an  ordinary  mind.  Born  into  a  family  life 
where  prudent  living  was  a  necessity,  where  good 
literature  was  common,  and  where  serious  thinking 
on  questions  of  social  life  and  duties  prevailed,  he 
early  became  imbued  with  high  ideals  of  social 
serviceableness.  Just  as  he  was  preparing  for  col- 
lege he  became  afflicted  with  partial  blindness, 
which  at  times  became  total,  and  which  made  con- 
secutive, persistent  study  impossible.  He  never  re- 
covered from  this  affliction.  Notwithstanding  such 
a  heavy  physical  handicap  he  struggled  bravely 
on  in  his  pursuit  of  knowledge;  and  at  the  age  of 
thirty  he  had  become,  through  his  own  exertions, 
one  of  the  best-informed  scientific  men  of  his  time. 
He  then  thought  to  put  his  knowledge  to  use;  and 
through  lectures,  essays,  and  textbooks,  he  became, 
in  a  national  sense,  an  "  Interpreter  of  Science  to  the 
People." 

In  1860  he  was  among  the  first  persons  in  Amer- 
ica to  recognize  the  significance  of  the  new  school  of 
thought  rising  in  England  and  crystallizing  around 
the  scientific  researches  of  Lyell,  Huxley,  Tyndall, 
Faraday,  Grove,  and  Darwin,  with  its  philosophic 
culmination  in  Spencer's  Law  of  Evolution.  Nor 

276 


Visited  by  E.  L.  Youmans 

was  he  slow  to  perceive  the  bearing  of  this  thought 
upon  theology,  upon  education  —  in  fact,  upon  all 
the  interests  of  social  well-being.  His  wise  counsels 
induced  the  eminent  publishing  firm  of  D.  Appleton 
&  Company  to  undertake  the  publication  in  Amer- 
ica, on  a  copyright  basis,  of  the  works  of  these 
eminent  English  scientists.  This  led  to  a  visit  to 
England  by  Youmans  in  1862  and  to  his  personal 
acquaintance  with  the  whole  group  of  English 
scientists  and  thinkers  who  made  the  middle  period 
of  the  last  century  the  most  memorable  in  the 
history  of  science.  His  intelligent  enthusiasm  won 
their  respect,  and  he  returned  with  assurances  of 
their  hearty  cooperation  in  his  efforts  to  make 
science  a  fundamental  feature  in  the  education  of 
the  people. 

It  was  while  engaged  in  various  projects  to  this 
end  that  he  fell  in  with  Fiske's  two  essays  men- 
tioned above.  He  saw  at  once  that  here  was  an 
American  scholar  whose  erudition  was  of  full  meas- 
ure, and  who  was  gifted  with  remarkable  powers 
of  lucid  exposition.  Youmans  saw  the  need  of  such 
a  thinker  and  writer  properly  to  present  the  new 
philosophy  of  science  to  the  American  public,  and 
he  sought  out  Fiske,  as  we  have  seen.1 

This  visit  of  Youmans  was  the  beginning  of  a 
warm  personal  friendship  between  the  two  men, 
which  had  no  interruption  until  the  death  of 

1  In  his  endeavor  to  find  the  author  of  the  two  essays,  Youmans 
made  inquiry  of  a  clergyman  in  Boston,  and  was  told  that  "  they  were 
written  by  a  young  atheist  in  Cambridge,  named  Fiske." 

277 


John  Fiske 

Youmans  in  1887.  In  the  years  to  come,  we  shall 
see  them  working  side  by  side  in  the  propagation  of 
ideas  common  to  both,  with  Fiske's  fine  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  his  friend  when  that  friend's  hand 
was  still.  At  present  we  should  note  two  things: 
that  this  visit  is  the  first  substantial  recognition  of 
his  thought  that  has  come  to  Fiske  outside  his  own 
personal  circle;  and  also,  that  it  brings  to  him  direct 
personal  knowledge  of  the  group  of  English  scientists 
and  thinkers  whose  thought  was  so  largely  influ- 
encing his  own,  and  in  so  sympathetic  a  way,  that 
he  feels  that  in  support  of  the  higher  phases  of  his 
own  thinking,  friendly  hands  are  stretched  out  to 
him  across  the  sea. 

Norton's  request  for  contributions,  and  Fiske's 
visit  to  Norton,  which  followed  at  once,  were  only 
a  little  less  gratifying  to  Fiske  than  the  visit  of 
Youmans.  The  " North  American  Review"  had 
long  been  the  representative  organ  of  the  best 
scholarship  in  America;  and  now  that  its  editorial 
control  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  such  scholars 
as  James  Russell  Lowell  and  Charles  Eliot  Norton, 
a  personal  editorial  request  for  contributions  was 
one  of  the  most  flattering  recognitions  an  American 
scholar  could  receive. 

In  his  call  upon  Norton,  Fiske  was  received  with 
such  courtesy  and  marked  appreciation  that  the 
call  insensibly  lengthened  to  a  visit.  The  conversa- 
tion ranged  over  a  wide  variety  of  subjects  in  classic 
and  mediaeval  history,  literature,  and  art;  it  also 

278 


Visits  Charles  Eliot  Norton 

covered  the~general  principles  of  criticisnTapplica- 
ble  to  the  interpretation  of  life  both  in  the  past  and 
the  present.  In  this  delightful  atmosphere,  Fiske 
for  the  time  being  forgot  all  about  the  law,  and 
yielded  himself  without  reserve  to  the  simple  yet 
helpful  way  in  which  Norton  bore  himself  as  scholar, 
critic,  and  adviser.  In  after  years  Fiske  referred  to 
this  visit  as  one  of  the  most  helpful  incidents  in  his 
life.  We  shall  see  later  that  some  thirty  years  after 
Norton  also  held  a  distinct  and  pleasant  remem- 
brance of  this  interview.1 

These  visits  of  Youmans  to  Fiske  and  of  Fiske  to 
Norton,  occurring  almost  simultaneously,  were  sig- 
nificant events  in  the  life  of  Fiske.  He  was  not  yet 
twenty-two  years  of  age.  His  intellectual  output 
had  been  but  incidental  in  his  college  life,  and  yet 
it  was  of  such  mature  character  as  to  attract  the 
attention  of  leaders  of  thought  in  England  and 
America.  His  gratulatory  remark,  therefore,  to  his 
mother,  that  he  thinks  he  is  "  being  taken  up  in 
great  style/'  was  only  the  expression  of  a  na'ive 
youthful  enthusiasm  fully  warranted  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. The  letters  are  absolutely  free  from  all 

1  As  this  paragraph  is  being  written,  —  October  22,  1908,  —  the 
obsequies  attendant  upon  the  close  of  the  life  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton 
—  scholar,  teacher,  and  eminent  citizen  —  are  being  paid.  Among 
the  many  tributes  to  his  memory  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  none  can 
come  from  the  scholar  and  historian  whose  advent  into  literature 
Norton  so  cordially  welcomed  forty-five  years  ago.  What  Fiske 
would  have  said  of  Norton  to-day  would  have  been  a  scholar's 
appreciation  of  a  scholar,  with  a  historian's  estimate  of  eminent 
citizenship,  expressed  in  language  befitting  the  subject  and  the 
occasion. 

279 


John  Fiske 

pedantic  conceit.  With  his  mother  he  is  perfectly 
open  and  frank  because  he  wishes  her  to  share  in 
every  honor  that  comes  to  him. 

From  this  time  forward  we  have  to  recognize  in 
Fiske's  mind  a  growing  sense  of  "  touching  elbows" 
in  the  great  world  of  thought  he  saw  surging  around 
him,  but  before  tracing  further  the  interesting  phase 
of  his  philosophical  activities,  we  must  follow  him 
in  his  legal  studies  for  the  next  few  months,  as  they 
were  the  dominating  consideration  in  his  life  at  this 
time. 

These  studies,  as  we  have  seen,  were  given  the 
complete  right  of  way  in  his  allotment  of  study 
hours,  and  in  his  letters  to  his  mother  and  to  Miss 
Brooks  there  is  revealed  a  Boanerges  sort  of  energy 
in  his  manner  of  pursuing  them.  To  Miss  Brooks 
he  writes:  "  I  am  in  the  highest  imaginable  spirits: 
nothing  agrees  with  me  like  a  regular  furious  set-to 
at  Books."  He  did  not  find  the  various  legal  text- 
books as  easy  or  as  entertaining  reading  as  the  clas- 
sical "Commentaries"  with  which  he  began.  Yet 
no  subject  daunted  him.  All  the  required  textbooks 
were  taken  up  in  order  and  plunged  into  with  per- 
fect abandon,  their  special  points  mentally  digested 
and  put  in  place  in  his  orderly  mind.  His  comments 
on  some  of  the  textbooks  through  which  he  waded 
are  many,  but  most  of  them  are  without  special 
interest  to-day,  owing  to  the  changes  that  have 
taken  place  in  recent  years  in  the  courses  of  study 
in  the  leading  law  schools  of  the  country.  It  can  be 

280 


His  Legal  Studies 

said,  in  a  general  way,  that  he  took  the  "  Com- 
mentaries*' and  the  works  on  " Contracts"  and  on 
"  Maritime  Law"  with  delightful  ease,  hiving  much 
philosophic  thought  therefrom;  that  while  he  re- 
garded the  subject  of  "Notes  and  Bills"  as  clearly 
presented,  he  yet  found  "that  1300  pages  of  en- 
dorser and  endorsee,  acceptor  and  payee,  grantor, 
etc.,  etc.,  gets  rather  insipid  before  it  is  all  read"; 
that  he  found  the  textbooks  on  "Real  Property" 
"the  very  salts  and  senna  of  reading" — one  of 
which  so  completely  exhausted  his  patience  that  he 
characterizes  it  as  "detestable:  the  style  is  clumsy, 
inelegant,  ungrammatical,  lame,  feeble,  muddy, 
inaccurate,  systemless,  metaphysical,  ambiguous; 
while  the  thinking  is  but  a  little  more  lucid  than  the 
style."1 

But  no  irritation  over  the  subject-matter  of  his  le- 
gal studies  could  check  his  steady  progress  to  their 
mastery  for  the  immediate  end  he  had  in  view  — 
his  admittance  to  the  bar  and  marriage.  The  two 
years'  course  of  study  at  the  Law  School  was  de- 


I  To  Miss  Brooks  he  sends,  in  a  playful  way,  the  following  extract 
from  one  of  his  legal  textbooks  —  a  bit  of  feudalism  —  as  a  sample 
of  the  "nice  reading"  he  finds  in  his  legal  studies:  — 

II  The  tenant  cannot  in  an  avowry  avoid  the  lords  possessory  right, 
because  of  the  seizin  given  by  his  own  hands.   This  writ  does  not  lie 
for  tenant  in  tail ;  for  he  may  avoid  such  seizin  to  the  lord  by  plea  to 
an  avowry  in  replevin.   The  writ  of  mesne  lies  when  upon  a  subin- 
feudation  the  mesne  lord  suffers  his  tenant  paravail  to  be  distrained 
upon  by  the  lord  paramount.    In  such  case,  the  tenant  shall  be  in- 
demnified by  the  mesne  lord;  and  if  he  make  default  therein,  he 
shall  be  forejudged  of  his  mesnality,  and  the  tenant  shall  hold  imme- 
diately of  the  lord  paramount." 

281 


John  Fiske 

signed  as  a  proper  preparation  for  admittance  to 
legal  practice,  and  it  was  embodied  in  some  thirty- 
seven  volumes  of  legal  lore.  After  six  months'  study 
Fiske  saw  that  he  could  compass  the  course  in  much 
less  than  the  allotted  time  —  in  fact,  within  nine 
months!  This  accomplished,  he  regarded  his  ad- 
mittance to  the  bar  assured,  and  then  the  way  was 
clear  to  his  marriage  in  the  following  autumn. 
With  this  plan  in  mind,  and  to  guard  against  any 
misunderstanding  of  the  condition  attached  to  his 
marriage,  he  had  the  condition  of  his  admittance  to 
the  bar  distinctly  reaffirmed  by  both  Mr.  Stoughton 
and  his  mother.  This  secured,  he  bent  himself  un- 
reservedly to  his  legal  studies  for  the  next  three 
months.  His  scientific  and  philosophic  studies  are 
much  curtailed.  His  critical  and  essay  writings  are 
entirely  given  up,  and  he  gives  graphic  pictures 
of  his  ploughing  his  way  through  such  works 
as  Abbott  on  Shipping,  Stearns  on  Real  Actions, 
Stephens  on  Pleading,  Greenleaf  on  Evidence, 
Story  on  Equity  Pleading  and  Jurisprudence,  Long 
on  Sales,  Byles  on  Bills,  etc.  —  the  course  closing 
with  the  eminently  practical  and  entertaining  work, 
the  General  Statutes  of  Massachusetts. 

To  be  examined  for  admittance  to  the  bar,  it  was 
necessary  that  he  should  be  recommended  to  the 
examining  board  by  some  reputable  lawyer.  Fiske 
thought  of  Judge  Curtis  for  a  sponsor:  but  would 
the  Judge  recommend  him  on  the  basis  of  nine 
months'  preparation?  He  sounded  the  Judge  by 

282 


Admitted  to  the  Boston  Bar 

asking  if  it  was  possible  to  pass  the  examination 
with  a  year's  study.  The  Judge  very  positively 
assured  him  it  was  not  —  such  a  thing  had  never 
been  heard  of,  and  the  examination  was  much  more 
thorough  than  formerly.  Fiske  saw  he  could  get  no 
assistance  from  the  Judge  in  his  project.  Not  at  all 
disheartened,  he  took  another  method  of  approach. 
He  got  from  Professor  Parsons,  of  the  Harvard  Law 
School,  a  certificate  of  membership,  attendance, 
general  character  and  intelligence;  and  through  his 
friend  Roberts  was  introduced  to  Judge  George 
White,  of  the  Probate  Court.  Judge  White,  upon 
being  told  of  Fiske's  college  training,  his  literary 
work,  and  his  having  taken  the  two  years'  course  of 
reading  at  the  Law  School,  very  readily  consented 
to  propose  him  for  examination  and  admission  to  the 
Boston  Bar.  What  followed  is  best  told  in  Fiske's 
own  words,  in  a  letter  to  his  mother  under  date  of 
July  13,  1864:  — 

"  I  was  admitted  to  the  Bar  Monday  morning. 
Last  week  Tuesday,  I  went  into  Court  and  passed  an 
eight  hours'  written  examination,  answering  every 
question  at  length,  and  correctly.  There  were  39 
questions.  I  was  then  told  to  come  in  Monday,  and 
learn  the  result.  On  Monday  morning  I  was  ad- 
mitted, took  the  oath  of  office,  and  received  my  cer- 
tificate— Judge  Russell  saying  I  had  passed  '  a  most 
excellent  examination.'  I  did  not  expect  to  be  ex- 
amined in  writing,  or  on  Tuesday;  but  supposed 
that  the  Judge  would  appoint  some  attorney  to 
examine  me  orally,  on  Wednesday  or  Thursday. 

283 


John  Fiske 

However,  I  am  glad  that  it  was  in  writing,  on  the 
whole,  for  I  was  thereby  enabled  to  work  up  my 
answers  into  better  shape.  I  felt  dreadfully  tired. 
I  feel  as  if  I  could  bid  good-bye  to  Law  with  good- 
will until  October." 

He  duly  signs  this  letter —  "  John  Fiske,  Attorney 
at  Law." 

The  condition  precedent  to  his  marriage  having 
been  fully  complied  with,  preparations  for  this  im- 
portant event  in  his  life  engrossed  his  attention 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  else  —  save  the  reading  of 
Scott's  novels  —  during  the  remainder  of  the  sum- 
mer of  1864.  Before  following  him  to  this  long- 
looked-for  consummation  of  ennobling  companion- 
ship, we  must  return  to  the  previous  November  and 
trace  what  followed  from  Dr.  Youmans's  visit  to 
Fiske  and  Fiske's  visit  to  Norton  —  in  other  words, 
take  note  of  some  of  the  things  that  Fiske  did  in 
those  hours  for  side  study  he  had  so  carefully  re- 
served from  his  legal  studies. 

His  letters  and  his  record  of  his  reading  show  that 
during  the  following  winter  and  early  spring  his 
mind  was  as  active  along  the  main  lines  of  scientific, 
historic,  and  philosophic  thinking  as  ever  —  as 
active  as  though  he  knew  not  law.  The  following 
titles  of  some  of  the  works  he  read  show  that  he 
ranged  over  a  wide  variety  of  subjects,  while  his 
letters  make  it  clear  that  he  read  thoughtfully,  and 
always  with  a  definite  purpose.  Among  the  works 
read  were  Huxley's  "Man's  Place  in  Nature"; 

284 


Side  Study  and  Reading 

"Authority  in  Matters  of  Opinion*'  and  "Observa- 
tion in  Politics,"  by  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis; 
Maine's  "Ancient  Law";  Irving's  "Mahomet  and 
his  Successors";  the  Koran;  several  volumes  in 
Italian,  including  Vico's  "Scienza  Nuova";  Mill's 
"Political  Economy";  Weiss's  "Life  of  Theodore 
Parker";  Youmans's  "Chemistry";  Draper's  "In- 
tellectual Development  of  Europe ";  Kenan's  "Vie 
de  Jesu";  "Autobiography  of  a  Dissenting  Minis- 
ter"; and  he  read  again  the  works  of  Spencer  and 
of  Buckle. 

The  breadth  of  Fiske's  thought  at  this  time  is  in- 
dicated by  his  giving  attention,  in  this  "storm  and 
stress"  period  of  his  affairs,  to  a  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth-century  thinker  like  Vico.  We  have, 
however,  a  ready  explanation  in  the  fact  that  Vico 
was  one  of  the  first  of  modern  thinkers  to  give  a 
philosophy  to  history  based  on  natural  law.  Vico's 
place  in  modern  thought  was  discussed  by  Fiske 
and  Norton  at  the  visit  referred  to,  and  Norton 
loaned  Fiske  his  copy  of  the  "Scienza  Nuova." 
Fiske's  comments  on  the  work  illustrate  his  thor- 
ough method  of  study.  He  says :  — 

"It  is  the  driest,  obscurist  metaphysicalist  book 
I  ever  got  hold  of.  Confucius  is  a  more  lucid  writer. 
'Mortgages'  and  'Remainders'  are  pleasanter  to 
peruse.  And  still  it  has  many  capital  ideas  —  some 
of  them  quite  Maine-y-Cornewall  Lewisy  —  enough 
to  keep  me  from  throwing  down  the  book,  even 
while  I  curse  at  its  clumsy  phraseology." 

285 


John  Fiske 

During  the  winter  Fiske  was  giving  serious 
thought  to  a  rationalistic  philosophy  of  human  his- 
tory, with  the  idea  of  embodying  his  thought  in  a 
review  of  Draper's  "Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe."  In  his  search  for  this  philosophy  he  had 
better  rewards  than  anything  he  found  in  Vico. 
One  of  the  first  thinkers  of  this  period  along  the 
lines  of  ethical  and  jurisprudential  evolution  was  Sir 
Henry  Sumner  Maine,  whose  profoundly  thought- 
ful essays  on  "Roman  Law"  and  "Ancient  Law" 
were  not  only  the  most  important  contributions 
ever  made  by  any  Englishman  to  historical  jurispru- 
dence; they  were  also  extremely  valuable  contribu- 
tions to  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  in  its  applica- 
tion to  human  society. 

It  might  well  be  expected  that  the  thought  of 
Sir  Henry  Maine  would  find  a  hearty  reception  in 
Fiske's  expanding  mind.  What  really  occurred  is 
given  in  a  letter  to  Miss  Brooks  written  imme- 
diately after  reading  Maine's  "Ancient  Law."  He 
writes :  — 

"  I  have  passed  through  an  Era,  and  entered  upon 
an  Epoch  in  my  life.  Thursday  evening  I  began 
Maine's  'Ancient  Law,'  and  read  it  all  day  New 
Year's,  finishing  it  at  exactly  twelve  in  the  evening. 
No  novel  that  I  ever  read  enchained  me  more.  I 
consider  it  almost  next  to  Spencer.  It  has  thrown 
all  my  ideas  of  Law  into  definite  shape.  It  has  sug- 
gested to  me  many  new  and  startling  views  of  social 
progress.  It  has  confirmed  many  new  generaliza- 
tions. I  scarcely  ever  read  a  work  so  exceedingly 

286 


Side  Study  and  Reading 

suggestive.  In  fact  it  suggests  far  more  than  it  says. 
Almost  every  proposition  in  it  may  be  made  the 
foundation  of  a  long  train  of  thought.  But  what  it 
hints  at,  what  it  expresses,  is  wonderful. 

"He  lays  open  the  whole  structure  of  ancient 
society;  penetrates  into  the  ideas  of  primitive  men; 
discovers  the  origin  of  International  Law;  explains 
the  notion  of  succession  to  property,  and  shows 
how  wills  arose ;  points  out  the  origin  of  the  idea  of 
Property;  shows  the  progress  of  the  idea  of  Contract 
and  of  our  moral  notions  of  Obligation ;  shows  how 
Criminal  Law  has  grown  up;  illustrates  the  progress 
of  men's  ideas  of  Justice;  lays  bare  the  whole 
structure  of  the  Feudal  System,  and  exhibits  the 
condition  of  society  in  the  Middle  Ages;  traces 
the  history  of  Roman  jurisprudence;  shows  up  the 
social  condition  of  India,  Russia  and  Austria;  ex- 
plains the  influence  of  Roman  law  on  theology,  on 
Morality  and  on  Metaphysics;  shows  the  way  in 
which  national  thought  depends  on  its  language 
—  O,  my  dear!  it  is  perfectly  GLORIOUS!  I  am 
going  to  read  it  over  and  over  until  I  know  it  by 
heart. 

"And  I  am  going  to  get  you  so  posted  up  that 
you  can  read  it.  Years  of  study  are  richly  rewarded, 
when  they  enable  one  to  experience  such  an  intel- 
lectual ecstasy  as  I  felt  New  Year's  day!  When  I 
came  out  to  dinner  and  heard  the  fellows  talking 
the  small-talk  —  the  stuff  that  people  talk  when 
they  have  nothing  in  them  to  let  out  —  you  can't 
imagine  how  dreadfully  low  and  worthless  their  pur- 
suits and  ideas  seemed  to  me.  O,  my  dear!  there 
is  nothing  in  this  world  like  SCIENCE;  nothing  so 
divine  as  the  life  of  a  scholar!  " 

287 


John  Fiske 

It  was  with  his  review  of  Draper's  work  in  mind 
that  he  also  read  at  this  period  "living's  Life  of 
Mahomet  and  his  Successors,"  and  also  the  Koran, 
suggested  by  Draper's  laudation  of  Saracenic  sci- 
ence, social  well-being,  toleration,  and  culture,  in 
contrast  to  the  ignorance,  squalor,  immorality,  and 
persecution  that  prevailed  throughout  Christian 
Europe  during  the  Dark  Ages.  Fiske  did  not  write 
his  contemplated  essay  on  Draper,  but  the  thoughts 
he  gathered  while  holding  the  subject  in  mind  he 
utilized  later  in  his  essays  on  " Rationalism"  and 
"The  Laws  of  History."  Here  it  is  interesting  to 
note  the  effect  produced  on  his  mind  by  the  read- 
ing of  the  Koran.  Writing  to  Miss  Brooks  he  says :  — 

"  I  have  nearly  finished  the  Koran,  and  though  it 
is  a  tedious  piece  of  reading,  requiring  a  great  deal 
of  patience  and  attention  to  wade  through  its  intri- 
cate oriental  sentences  —  yet  I  cannot  help  being 
amazed  at  its  wonderful  eloquence,  its  sublime  poe- 
try and  its  lofty  morality,  as  well  as  its  extensive 
knowledge  of  Eastern  traditions. 

"Mohammed  must  have  been  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  men  that  ever  lived  to  have  com- 
posed such  a  book,  without  knowing  how  either  to 
read  or  to  write.  That  he  did  compose  nearly  all  of 
it,  can  hardly  be  doubted.  The  work  bears  every 
evidence  of  genuineness.  To  any  one  that  has  read 
it,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  Arabians  must  have 
looked  upon  him  as  inspired,  or  even  how  he  might 
well  have  deemed  himself  so,  without  having  re- 
course to  any  of  the  old  theories  of  his  being  an 
impostor. 

288 


The  Kor^n 

11 1  expect  to  finish  it  on  Monday;  I  am  glad  that 
I  have  read  it;  for  I  can  now  appreciate  the  history 
of  the  Arabs  far  better  than  before.  Our  ideas  of 
Mohammedanism  which  we  get  from  its  enemies 
mostly,  are  extremely  distorted  and  falsified.  Peo- 
ple don't  scruple  to  lie  about  it.  The  Korin  is 
continually  accused  of  being  sensual.  On  the  con- 
trary it  is  as  free  from  sensuality  as  the  New  Testa- 
ment; and  far  more  so  than  the  Old  Testament.  Its 
ethical  tone  is  not  quite  equal  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment; but  much  higher  than  the  Old.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  a  specimen  of  sublime  composition  it  ex- 
cels the  New  Testament,  but  falls  short  of  the  poetic 
books  of  the  Old.  But  when  I  consider  it  as  the 
work  of  one  man,  and  that  an  untaught  man,  then 
am  I  stupefied  at  the  magnitude  of  the  genius  which 
produced  it." 

The  wide  variety  of  his  interests  is  reflected 
throughout  the  letters.  Intellectually  he  seems  to 
have  been  busy  every  waking  hour  of  the  day,  and 
yet  there  does  not  appear  to  have  been  any  hurry 
or  confusion  in  the  steady  working  of  his  mind. 

He  is  guiding  Miss  Brooks  in  a  course  of  reading 
in  ancient  history,  and  the  following  are  among  the 
suggestions  he  gives  her;  —  they  show  how  orderly 
his  historical  knowledge  is  in  his  own  mind. 

"CANON  OF  BELIEF 

"All  Roman  history  previous  to  the  invasion  of 
Italy,  by  Pyrrhus,  is  largely  myth,  legend,  and 
fable.  Authentic  contemporary  records  begin  with 
Pyrrhus.  This  has  been  decisively  proved  by  Sir 

289 


John  Fiske 

G.  C.  Lewis  since  Arnold  wrote.  I  do  not  mean  that 
early  Roman  history  is  all  false,  but  that  it  is  very 
unreliable. " 

f  And  here  he  counsels  her  in  a  way  that  reflects 
the  scope  and  accuracy  of  his  own  historic  knowl- 
edge:— 

"Yes,  read  your  Roman  history  next,  if  you  like. 
As  a  general  rule  it  would  be  best  to  read  Greek 
history  first;  but  it  is  always  best  to  read  what  we 
feel  most  in  the  mood  for.  Study  can't  be  gov- 
erned by  recipes. 

"When  you  tell  me  how  you  are  getting  along, 
please  tell  me  by  the  events,  thus:  'I  am  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  VI 1 1/  or  wherever  you  may  be  in 
English  history.  Similarly  in  Greek  and  Roman 
history,  where  there  are  no  reigns  to  go  by,  tell  me 
at  what  war  or  other  great  event  you  have  arrived. 
Any  event  or  man  mentioned  at  random  will  do,  for 
I  have  them  all  tabulated  in  my  mind." 

And  here  we  have  a  passage  which  reflects  his 
deep  feeling  in  regard  to  the  Athenians  and  to 
Athens,  apropos  of  Miss  Brooks's  reading  in  Greek 
history:  — 

"Their  twenty-eight  years'  resistance  to  almost 
all  the  rest  of  Greece  combined  is  one  of  the  grand- 
est things  in  history.  I  will  quote  the  surpassingly 
beautiful  lines  of  Byron  to  Athens  in  '  Childe  Har- 
old':— 

'And  still  his  honeyed  wealth  Hymettus  yields; 
There  the  blithe  bee  his  fragrant  fortress  builds, 
The  freeborn  wanderer  of  thy  mountain-air; 

290 


Literary  Writing 

Apollo  still  thy  long,  long  summer  gilds  — 

Still  in  his  beam  Mendeli's  marbles  glare; 

Art,  Glory,  Freedom  fail,  but  Nature  still  is  fair.' 

"  Is  n't  that  divine?  Apollo  is  the  Sun,  you  know. 
I  think  that  one  of  the  most  exquisite  things  ever 
written.  It  brings  the  tears  even  when  I  write  it. 
The  history  and  life  of  Athens  have  always  taken 
hold  of  my  feelings  intensely.  Its  career  is  one  of 
the  sublimest  things  in  the  world's  history.  Were 
n't  you  deeply  interested  in  that  glorious  struggle 
with  the  Persians  at  Marathon,  at  Plataea,  at 
Thermopylae  and  Salamis?" 

We  have  had  occasion  to  notice  Fiske's  keen 
appreciation  of  fine  thought  wherever  found.  In 
a  postscript  to  a  letter  to  Miss  Brooks  we  find  the 
following  gem :  — 

"The  Vedas,  inculcating  forgiveness,  say:  — 
"'The  tree  withdraweth  not  its  shade  from  the 
woodcutter. '  — 

"  Is  n't  this  splendid?  Nothing  in  the  Bible  sur- 
passes it  in  my  opinion.  The  beauty  of  the  figure  is 
perfectly  irresistible." 

Fiske's  literary  writing  during  this  period  was 
limited  to  two  review  notices  —  Mill's  "Political 
Economy"  and  Youmans's  "Chemistry."  Both 
were  written  for  the  "North  American  Review." 
The  review  of  Mill  was  marked  by  a  clear,  mature 
handling  of  a  very  abstruse  subject,  and  it  was 
accepted  with  cordial  approval  by  Mr.  Norton. 
The  review  of  Youmans's  "  Chemistry  "  Mr.  Norton 
declined,  because  of  Fiske's  hearty  commendation 

291 


John  Fiske 

of  the  new  views  in  chemistry  which  Youmans  had 
introduced  into  his  work,  —  views  which  then  were 
not  accepted  at  Harvard,  but  which  have  since  been 
universally  accepted  and  have  fairly  reconstructed 
chemical  science.  Fiske  had  no  difficulty  in  getting 
the  review  accepted  by  the  "  Atlantic,"  as  we  shall 
see  a  little  later. 

But  the  most  interesting  feature  of  Fiske 's  life 
at  this  period  was  his  growing  interest  in  Herbert 
Spencer  and  the  opening  of  their  correspondence. 
His  letters  to  his  mother  show  that  Spencer's  per- 
sonality —  what  he  could  learn  of  it  —  strongly  im- 
pressed him.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  expresses  a 
wish  that  his  mother  would  paint  him  a  portrait  of 
Spencer  from  a  photograph  which  he  sends  her.  Of 
this  photograph  he  says:  — 

4 'The  principal  thing  about  the  face  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  eyes  and  that  is  given  in  the  photo- 
graph to  perfection.  I  think  I  had  rather  have  a 
picture  of  him  as  good  as  my  head  of  Galileo  than 
anything  else  in  the  world  almost." 

•  He  advises  his  mother  to  read  Spencer's  essay  on 
the  "Nebular  Hypothesis,"  saying:  — 

"  It  is  the  greatest  production  of  the  human  in- 
tellect since  the  Principia  of  Newton.  With  La- 
place's own  data  he  proves  what  Laplace  could  n't." 

After  the  visit  of  Youmans,  Fiske  brooded  much 
over  the  idea  of  writing  to  Spencer  as  Youmans 
had  suggested.  He  hesitated,  awed  apparently  by 

292 


HERBERT    SPENCER 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

the  thought  of  Spencer's  greatness.  In  January 
he  received  a  letter  from  Youmans  in  which  the 
latter  said  that  Spencer  had  read  Fiske' s  essay 
on  the  "Evolution  of  Language"  with  marked  ap- 
proval ;  and  again  he  urged  Fiske  to  write  Spencer 
without  delay.  After  some  further  deliberation 
Fiske  wrote  Spencer  the  following  letter:  — 

PETERSHAM,  MASS.,  February  20,  1864. 
My  dear  Mr.  Spencer:  — 

I  have  known  you  a  long  time  through  your 
writings  and  have  felt  a  strong  desire  to  become 
personally  acquainted  with  you,  but  the  fear  of 
appearing  presumptuous  has  hitherto  restrained 
me  from  taking  any  steps  to  secure  that  end.  This 
apprehension  has,  however,  been  allayed  by  re- 
cently-occurring circumstances. 

Early  in  November  I  received  a  visit  from  Dr. 
E.  L.  Youmans,  of  New  York,  who  had  heard  of 
me  as  the  author  of  two  Essays;  the  one  entitled 
"Fallacies  of  Buckle's  Theory  of  Civilization, " 
published  in  the  "National  Quarterly  Review"  for 
December,  1861 ;  and  the  other  entitled  "The  Evo- 
lution of  Language,"  published  in  the  "North 
American  Review"  for  October,  1863. 

Dr.  Youmans  encouraged  me  to  gratify  my  long 
felt  desire  of  writing  to  you,  and  advised  me  to  ac- 
company my  letter  with  the  two  Essays  just  men- 
tioned as  the  most  appropriate  means  of  introduc- 
tion. Both  articles  have  fared  somewhat  roughly  in 
the  hands  of  the  Editors;  and  especially  the  latter 
one  —  several  entire  passages  were  omitted  by  the 
late  Editor  of  the  "N.  A.  R."  —  an  exhibition  of 
moral  cowardice  none  the  less  reprehensible  because 

293 


John  Fiske 

born  of  Christian  narrowness,  and  accompanied  by 
Christian  intolerance.  The  most  important  of  these 
omissions  I  have  inserted  in  manuscript,  thus  re- 
storing the  Essay,  as  nearly  as  is  worth  while,  to 
its  original  form. 

The  first  article,  written  when  I  was  nineteen 
years  old  and  had  but  recently  become  acquainted 
with  your  Discovery,  marks  a  transitional  phase  in 
my  thought.  I  was  brought  up  in  the  most  repul- 
sive form  of  Calvinism  in  which  I  remained  until  I 
was  sixteen  years  of  age.  My  skepticism,  excited  in 
1858  by  geological  speculations,  was  confirmed  in 
the  following  year  by  the  work  of  Mr.  Buckle. 

At  the  time  when  I  reviewed  Buckle  I  was  just 
passing  out  from  Comtism.  During  six  months  of 
incessant  study  and  reflection  my  former  idols  were 
all  demolished.  Having  successively  adopted  and 
rejected  the  system  of  almost  every  philosopher 
from  Descartes  to  Professor  Ferrier,  I  began  the 
year  1860  with  Comte,  Mill,  and  Lewes.  I  then 
favored  the  scheme  of  acquiring  a  general  knowl- 
edge of  all  the  sciences  in  their  hierarchical  order 
as  laid  down  by  Comte,  which  scheme  was  eventu- 
ally carried  out.  I  first  noticed  your  name  in  Mr. 
Lewes's  little  exposition  of  Comte  early  in  1860,  and 
the  extract  from  "Social  Statics"  there  given  led 
me  to  put  down  my  name  for  "First  Principles," 
before  there  could  have  been  as  yet  more  than  a 
dozen  subscribers. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  enter  into  further  details. 
The  influence  of  your  writings  is  apparent  alike  in 
every  line  of  my  writings  and  every  sentence  of  my 
conversation :  so  inextricably  have  they  become  in- 
tertwined with  my  own  thinking,  that  frequently 

294 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

on  making  a  new  generalization,  I  scarcely  know 
whether  to  credit  myself  with  it  or  not. 

I  graduated  at  Harvard  last  summer  and  am 
now  connected  with  the  University  as  a  student 
of  Law.  It  is  my  purpose  to  occupy  the  leisure 
time  left  by  my  profession  in  working  out  a  com- 
plete theory  of  the  origin  and  evolution  of  Lan- 
guage after  the  manner  sketched  in  my  Essay  on 
that  subject. 

Associated  with  me  to  some  extent  in  my  stud- 
ies, and  endeavoring  to  carry  the  same  principles 
into  Jurisprudence,  is  Mr.  George  L.  Roberts,  an 
attorney  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Justice  Curtis. 

If  the  articles  which  I  now  send  meet  with  your 
approval,  I  can  desire  nothing  better.  Hoping 
sincerely  that  the  encouragement  and  assistance 
which  you  have  so  long  unconsciously  given  me, 
you  will  not  think  it  unworthy  to  consciously 
vouchsafe, 

I  am,  yours  truly, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

To  HERBERT  SPENCER,  ESQR., 
LONDON,  ENGLAND. 

Spencer's  reply  was  as  follows :  — 

29  BLOOMSBURY  SQ.,  W.  C., 
March  26,  1864. 

My  dear  Sir:  — 

Excuse  the  delay  in  replying  to  your  letter  of 
February  2Oth.  I  have  been  so  busy  with  a  pam- 
phlet that  I  have  in  hand  that  I  have  been  able  to 
attend  to  nothing  else. 

It  is  very  refreshing  to  me  to  meet  with  so  much 
sympathy  as  that  expressed  in  your  letter.  The 

295 


John  Fiske 

account  you  give  of  your  intellectual  progress  from 
a  narrow  form  of  theology  to  wider  beliefs  is  inter- 
esting; and  the  amount  of  labor  and  thought  you 
have  evidently  gone  through  in  the  course  of  this 
change  implies  an  unbiased  search  after  truth  very 
unusual  —  would  it  were  more  usual.  It  is  a  satis- 
faction to  me  to  find  that  after  traversing  such  wide 
and  various  fields  of  speculation  as  those  you  de- 
scribe, you  should  express  so  decided  an  adhesion 
to  the  doctrines  I  have  set  forth.  As  your  fellow- 
countryman,  Emerson,  remarks,  "One's  own  be- 
liefs gain  in  strength  on  finding  that  another's  co- 
incides with  them." 

Thank  you  for  sending  copies  of  the  two  essays 
with  the  manuscript  additions.  I  had  already  seen 
the  one  in  the  "  North  American  Review."  After 
reviews  of  the  ordinary  unthinking  kind  it  was 
pleasant  to  read  a  review  which  showed  not  only 
power  of  appreciation  but  also  power  of  independ- 
ent thought.  Judging  from  the  indications  given 
in  that  article  I  doubt  not  that  you  will  render  im- 
portant service  in  elaborating  the  doctrine  of  Evo- 
lution in  its  application  to  Language.  By  all 
means  persevere;  and  encourage  your  friend  Mr. 
Roberts  to  do  the  like  in  his  department.  The  field 
is  so  vast  a  one  that  it  requires  more  than  one 
labourer  to  work  in  it. 

The  pamphlet  named  at  the  outset  as  having  so 
much  absorbed  my  energies  since  receiving  your 
letter,  is  on  the  "  Classification  of  the  Sciences," 
with  an  appendix  rebutting  the  current  idea  that 
I  belong  to  the  school  of  Comte.  This  will  be  is- 
sued here  in  a  few  days:  and  I  hope  will  be  issued 
in  the  United  States  some  few  weeks  after  you 

296 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

receive  this.    I  will  request  Professor  Youmans  to 
forward  copies  to  you,  and  to  Mr.  Roberts. 
I  am,  dear  Sir, 

Very  truly  yours, 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 
To  JOHN  FISKE,  ESQR., 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS., 
U.S. A. 

That  Fiske  was  delighted  to  receive  this  recogni- 
tion from  Herbert  Spencer  —  a  recognition  which, 
considering  Spencer's  habitual  reserve,  was  remark- 
ably cordial  —  the  following  bears  testimony.  The 
letter  was  at  once  shown  to  Roberts  and  was  then 
sent  to  his  mother  in  New  York,  with  whom  Miss 
Brooks  wras  visiting,  with  the  following  hasty  com- 
ments: — 

"I  have  had  a  splendid  letter  from  Spencer  — 
hardly  dare  to  send  it  by  mail.  Yet  I  will  put  it  in 
with  this.  Give  it  to  Abby  to  bring  back  with  her 
when  she  comes.  Treat  it  as  carefully  as  if  it  were  a 
scroll  of  Al  Koran  just  tumbled  from  the  Prophet's 
pen  —  which  he  did  n't  use,  by  the  way,  as  he 
could  n't  write." 

Having  by  April  fully  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
would  prepare  for  the  bar  examination  to  be  held  in 
Boston  in  July,  Fiske  gave  up  all  writing  during  the 
intervening  time,  and  concentrated  his  mind  upon 
his  legal  studies,  as  we  have  seen,  with  an  occasional 
dip  into  his  philosophical  studies.  His  review  of 
Youmans 's  "Chemistry,"  which  Norton  declined, 

297 


John  Fiske 

was  readily  accepted  by  the  " Atlantic  Monthly*1 
and  was  published  in  the  August  number  of  that 
magazine  for  1 864  —  thus  becoming  his  first  con- 
tribution to  the  magazine  that  subsequently  came 
to  regard  him  as  one  of  its  most  valued  contributors. 

Reviewing  Fiske's  intellectual  activity  in  its 
variety  and  its  totality,  during  the  nine  months  in 
which  he  was  preparing  for  admission  to  the  bar, 
one  cannot  but  be  impressed  both  by  its  quantity 
and  its  quality.  His  law  reading  speaks  for  itself. 
His  general  reading  centering  around  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution  reflects  not  only  his  own  predilections, 
but  also  the  philosophic  trend  of  the  time.  An  ex- 
amination of  the  leading  journals  of  thought  during 
this,  the  middle  period  of  the  last  century,  shows 
most  convincingly  the  great  unrest  that  was  affect- 
ing all  phases  of  religious  and  philosophic  thinking, 
arising  from  the  then  recent  advances  in  science  and 
their  bearing  upon  all  the  interests  of  social  well- 
being. 

Fiske  was  not  insensible  to  this  great  discussion. 
He  could  not  be.  He  was  surrounded  by  an  atmos- 
phere of  doubt  and  speculation  as  to  absolute  veri- 
ties, the  like  of  which  had  never  before  occurred  in 
the  development  of  human  thinking,  and  he  was 
simply  seeking  for  the  truth.  We  shall  soon  see  what 
these  advances  in  science  were  that  were  producing 
such  momentous  changes  in  the  development  of  hu- 
man thought.  At  present  we  have  only  to  note  that 

298 


His  Marriage 

the  study  of  the  law — even  under  the  very  excep- 
tional conditions  we  have  been  considering — could 
not  crowd  out,  could  hardly  diminish,  Fiske's  activ- 
ity in  the  pursuit  of  his  favorite  studies  in  science, 
history,  and  philosophy.  And  this  statement  should 
be  made  —  during  these  months  of  persistent,  stren- 
uous mental  labor,  he  was  cheered,  encouraged,  and 
sustained  by  the  ever-considerate,  sympathetic  af- 
fection of  Miss  Brooks.  The  state  of  his  mind  just 
before  his  examination  for  the  bar  is  reflected  in  this 
passage  in  one  of  his  letters:  "Tell  you  what,  my 
dear,  Petersham  hills  will  look  pleasant,  if  I  am  a 
member  of  the  bar  when  I  next  see  you." 

Following  his  admission  to  the  bar,  the  letters  to 
his  mother  give  interesting  details  of  his  and  Miss 
Brooks's  happy  cooperative  work  in  furnishing  and 
arranging  his  student  rooms  at  Holyoke  Place, 
Cambridge,  in  which  they  were  to  begin,  in  a  mod- 
est way,  their  wedded  life.  These  letters  show  his 
ever- thoughtful  consideration  for  his  mother  and  his 
grandmother. 

On  the  6th  of  September,  1864,  at  11.30  A.M., 
John  Fiske  and  Abby  Morgan  Brooks  were  mar- 
ried by  the  Reverend  Edmund  B.  Willson,  assisted 
by  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody,  at  Appleton  Chapel,  Harvard 
University,  Cambridge.  This  was  the  first  wedding 
in  Appleton  Chapel,  and  Professor  Paine  played  the 
organ  on  the  occasion. 


CHAPTER  XI 

GIVES  UP  LAW  FOR  LITERATURE — PHILOSOPHY  OF 
HISTORY — ESSAYS  ON  LAWS  OF  HISTORY — GROTE'S 
OPINION  —  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SPENCER  — 
NEW  ERA  AT  HARVARD — UNIVERSITY  REFORM 
— BRYCE'S  "HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE" 

1864-1866 

FISKE'S  practice  of  the  law  was  brief  and  uneventful. 
On  his  return  from  his  wedding  journey  he  sought 
office  room  with  an  established  attorney,  where,  by 
paying  a  portion  of  the  rent,  he  could  have  a  desk, 
and  thus  to  some  extent  come  into  touch  with  pro- 
fessional practice.  He  had  the  good  wishes  of  a 
number  of  influential  friends,  and  Mr.  Stoughton's 
extensive  clientage  required  occasional  professional 
work  in  Boston.  After  applications  in  a  few  direc- 
tions he  finally  secured  desk-room  with  Edward  F. 
Hodges  at  No.  42  Court  Street,  where  on  the  office 
door  his  name  duly  appeared  as  "Attorney  at 
Law."  He  was  afterwards  in  the  office  of  David  P. 
Kimball  for  a  time.  Desiring  to  obtain  the  degree 
of  LL.B.  from  the  Harvard  Law  School,  he  kept  his 
connection  with  the  Law  School  as  student  for  an- 
other year,  and  took  part  "  on  the  wrong  side  "  in 
a  moot  case.  In  July,  1865,  he  received  his  degree. 
He  was  as  methodical  in  his  practice  of  the  law 
as  in  his  literary  work,  and  was  faithfully  at  his 

300 


Attorney  at  Law 

office  desk  five  hours  a  day.  But  clients  were  not 
forthcoming.  Meantime  he  seems  to  have  given 
himself  largely  to  the  reading  of  modern  fiction 
as  represented  by  the  novels  of  Scott,  Dickens, 
Hawthorne,  George  Eliot,  Charles  Reade,  Dumas, 
Bulwer,  Thackeray,  and  Charles  Kingsley.  This 
fiction  reading  appears  to  have  been  interspersed 
with  quite  a  wide  range  of  general  reading  in  phil- 
ology, history,  science,  and  philosophy,  and  with 
very  little  law.  His  admiration  for  Scott  and  Dick- 
ens finds  frequent  expression,  as  well  as  his  strong 
liking  for  Thackeray,  Charles  Reade,  and  George 
Eliot.  Hawthorne  he  does  not  like  at  all,  and  he 
expresses  himself  thus  —  "Hawthorne's  'Marble 
Faun*  and  'House  of  Seven  Gables'  are  trash. 
'Scarlet  Letter'  is  bearable." 

The  record  of  his  reading  shows  that  the  works 
of  Spencer,  Darwin,  Mill,  Lewes,  and  Lyell  were 
read  and  re-read,  while  the  letters  reveal  the  fact 
that  the  whole  tenor  of  his  thought  was  centring 
around  the  evolutionary  philosophy.  And  this  fact 
seemed  to  enlarge  his  sympathies  and  interests  in 
various  directions,  as  a  few  extracts  from  the  letters 
will  show. 

Fiske's  historical  reading  included  Prescott's 
"Ferdinand  and  Isabella,"  and  "Philip  the  Sec- 
ond," together  with  Motley's  "Rise  of  the  Dutch 
Republic"  and  his  "United  Netherlands."  Fiske 
comments  upon  Prescott  and  Motley  as  historians 
thus:  — 

301 


John  Fiske 

"  I  like  Motley  better  than  Prescott.  He  treats  tyr- 
anny more  disrespectfully.  If  a  king  like  Philip  II 
is  a  rake,  a  bigot,  a  burglar,  an  assassin,  he  calls 
him  so,  instead  of  his  speaking  of  his  'arbitrary 
and  somewhat  unscrupulous  policy/  While,  on  the 
other  hand,  his  reverence  for  a  great  defender  of  hu- 
man rights,  like  William  the  Silent,  almost  amounts 
to  worship.  Motley  is  a  historian  of  the  People. 
Prescott  of  Kings  and  Nobles:  so  that,  although 
Prescott  is  a  rather  better  writer,  I  consider  Motley 
much  more  of  a  historian.  Motley's  style  is  a  little 
too  jerky  and  mannerish,  but  it  has  vitality. " 

His  thought  is  turned  to  making  a  list  of  the 
men  who  should  be  placed  in  the  first  rank  for  intel- 
lectual power,  and  he  is  struck  by  the  fact  that 
"Florence  has  been  the  birthplace  of  four  men  of 
the  first  order  of  genius  —  Dante,  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Michael  Angelo,  Machiavelli;  and  Galileo, 
although  born  in  Pisa,  was  of  a  Florentine  family/' 

Speaking  of  Shakespeare,  he  says  :  — 

"  I  am  angry  because  I  am  so  ignorant  of  Shake- 
speare. I  have  thought  of  beginning  at  once  and 
reading  him  through,  interrupting  Spanish  history 
for  the  purpose/' 

Writing  of  a  translation  of  Goethe's  "Faust,"  he 
says :  — 

"The  prayer  of  Margaret  to  the  Virgin  is,  in  the 
German,  one  of  the  most  heart-breaking  things  in 
poetry.  I  have  never  read  it  without  crying  aloud. 

302 


Essay  Writing 

The  translation  is  as  good  as  it  could  be  made;  but 
not  having  been  done  by  miracle,  it  necessarily  fails 
to  produce  the  combined  effect  of  music  and  mean- 
ing, of  sound  and  sense,  which  the  German  does." 

Referring  to  his  philological  studies,  he  says:  — 

"Getting  a  lot  of  languages  is  like  getting  a  lot  of 
money.  You  have  to  keep  at  it  all  the  time  in  order 
not  to  lose  your  acquisitions.  A  word  has  a  tend- 
ency to  slip  out  of  one's  head,  much  as  a  quarter 
has  a  tendency  to  crawl  out  of  one's  pocket-book. 
With  sufficient  digging  and  scrubbing,  however, 
I  suppose  that  both  words  and  quarters  could  be 
saved  and  accumulated." 

While  waiting  for  clients  and  reading  discursively 
in  various  directions,  Fiske's  thought  was  centring 
around  questions  pertaining  to  man's  sociological 
development  and  the  application  to  these  ques- 
tions of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution.  Two  subjects 
along  the  lines  of  historico  sociological  inquiry  were 
brought  freshly  before  him  by  the  publication  of 
Max  Miiller's  "Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Lan- 
guage" and  Lecky's  "History  of  Rationalism  in 
Europe."  He  took  these  two  works  as  texts  for 
writing  two  essays,  entitled  "Problems  in  Lan- 
guage and  Mythology"  and  "The  Conflict  of  Rea- 
son with  Bigotry  and  Superstition."  Both  essays 
were  published  in  the  "Christian  Examiner,"  the 
leading  organ  of  the  Unitarian  denomination. 

The  latter  essay  was  first  sent  to  Norton  for  the 
"North  American  Review."  Norton  accepted  it 

303 


John  Fiske 

with  marked  approval  "as  an  excellent  piece  of 
work,"  but,  after  keeping  it  for  several  months,  he 
returned  it  for  some  changes,  which  Fiske,  as  a  care- 
ful student  of  mediaeval  and  modern  history,  could 
not  make.  This  essay  is  especially  noteworthy  for 
its  fine  spirit  of  critical  equilibrium  or  tolerance 
throughout.  Having  occasion  to  review  the  whole 
history  of  Christian  superstition,  bigotry,  and  per- 
secution, he  writes  not  at  all  in  the  spirit  of  a  parti- 
san, but  with  the  fairness  of  an  Evolutionist,  who 
saw,  beneath  the  perturbations  of  European  society 
from  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  down  to 
the  present  time,  the  steady  unfolding  of  ever- 
higher  ethical  ideals,  as  well  as  of  conduct  based  on 
those  ideals;  in  other  words,  the  slow  but  steady 
metamorphosing  of  Christianity  itself  through  the 
evolution  of  its  own  ethical  and  spiritual  content. 

During  this  period  of  waiting,  Fiske  reveals  him- 
self to  his  mother  through  his  reading,  his  thought, 
his  writing  as  frankly  as  before  his  marriage.  On 
July  21,  1865,  his  daughter  Maud  was  born,  open- 
ing, as  we  shall  see,  through  parenthood,  a  fresh  and 
deeply  interesting  phase  in  Fiske' s  character. 
.  Still  few  clients:  and  facing  the  future  with  a 
family  on  his  hands,  it  appears  that,  during  the 
autumn  of  1865,  thoughts  of  giving  up  the  law  and 
devoting  himself  to  literature,  science,  and  philoso- 
phy were  forcing  themselves  on  Fiske 's  mind.  His 
experience  of  a  year  in  an  endeavor  to  unite  the 
practice  of  the  law  with  the  pursuit  of  his  favorite 

304 


Gives  up  Law  for  Literature 

studies  had  shown  him  that  the  task  was  a  hopeless 
one,  that  they  had  nothing  in  common,  and  that 
one  must  be  given  up. 

But  he  hesitated  to  give  up  a  definitely  formed 
purpose.  He  writes:  "My  obstinacy  comes  in  and 
says,  '  By  George,  I  won't  give  up  what  I  have  once 
tried,  unless  I  have  to!'"  And  so,  at  the  opening 
of  the  year  1866,  we  find  him  still  in  doubt  as  to 
his  future  course  —  literature  and  philosophy  or 
the  law.  His  predilections  were  all  for  the  former, 
while  his  respect  for  the  wishes  of  his  mother  and  of 
Mr.  S  tough  ton  restrained  him  from  decisive  action. 
But  his  mother  and  Mr.  Stoughton  were  not  un- 
observant. They  saw  his  desire  to  respect  their 
wishes  and  the  uncomplaining  way  in  which  he  had 
entered  upon  a  course  of  professional  life  that  had 
for  him  but  few  attractions;  while  his  letters  re- 
vealed the  great  activity  of  his  mind  along  the  new 
lines  of  thought  which  science  was  now  opening  for 
human  consideration.  His  mother  and  Mr.  Stough- 
ton, .therefore,  clearly  saw  that  any  form  of  pro- 
fessional life  that  would  compel  him  to  give  up  his 
favorite  studies  would  be  a  perversion  of  his  re- 
markable intellectual  powers,  and  they  readily  ac- 
quiesced in  his  proposal  to  give  up  the  law  and  con- 
centrate himself  upon  a  literary  life,  with  whatever 
results  the  future  might  unfold. 

This  decision  having  been  reached  early  in  1866, 
in  the  spring  of  this  year  Fiske  took  his  little  family 
for  a  while  to  his  grandmother's  home  in  Middle- 

305 


John  Fiske 

town,  Connecticut,  where  amidst  the  scenes  of  his 
youth  he  could  quietly  get  his  thoughts  into  order 
and  make  a  beginning  upon  the  various  literary 
projects  that  for  some  time  had  been  shaping  in  his 
mind. 

In  the  first  place,  he  seems  to  have  made  a  care- 
ful inventory,  as  it  were,  of  his  intellectual  prop- 
erty, to  see  where  his  mental  capital  was  most  ad- 
vantageously invested  for  productive  working.  He 
realized  that  while  he  had  a  fair  grasp  of  the  gen- 
eral principles  underlying  the  physical,  chemical, 
and  biological  sciences,  he  was  not  an  original  in- 
vestigator in  any  one  of  them.  He  saw  that  his 
chief  acquisitions  were  in  the  mathematical,  the 
historical,  and  the  sociological  sciences,  with  a  de- 
cided taste  for  philosophic  science;  that  is,  the 
science  of  the  sciences  —  the  ultimate  postulates  of 
the  human  mind  as  to  the  origin  and  destiny  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  physical  cosmos  and  human  con- 
sciousness, as  well  as  to  the  reality  that  lies  back 
of  all  cosmic  phenomena. 

This  survey  of  his  intellectual  equipment  was 
accompanied  by  an  equally  thoughtful  survey  of 
the  historical  and  sociological  sciences,  wherein  it 
appeared  that  the  record  of  human  history  was  still 
to  a  large  extent  under  bondage  to  certain  theo- 
logico-historic  assumptions  which  denied  to  the 
various  historic  periods  all  causal  sequence,  and 
made  them  the  unrelated,  mysterious  workings  of  a 
Divine  personality  whose  methods  of  dealing  with 


The  Doctrine  of  Evolution 

humanity  were  forever  inscrutable  to  the  reason- 
ing mind.  Fiske's  chief  acquisitions  were  in  these 
sciences,  and  he  had  been  a  careful  student  of 
Vico,  Lessing,  Herder,  Comte,  Mommsen,  Grote, 
and  Buckle  in  their  efforts  to  free  the  historic  record 
of  civilization  from  its  bondage  to  theologic  dogmas. 
Further,  he  was  familiar  with  the  recent  advances 
in  the  ethnological,  the  philological,  and  the  eco- 
nomical sciences,  wherein  the  existence  of  some  deep- 
seated  physico-sociological  laws  governing  man's 
relations  to  the  cosmos  and  to  his  brother  man  were 
clearly  adumbrated.  Again,  he  had  come  to  the 
acceptance  of  Spencer's  definition  of  life  —  "the 
continuous  adjustment  of  internal  relations  to  ex- 
ternal relations"  —  as  the  law  of  the  organic  world 
and  the  master  key  to  all  social  phenomena.  The 
doctrine  of  Evolution  in  its  physical  and  sociolog- 
ical bearings  meant  to  him  the  reenvisagement  of 
human  knowledge  for  the  synthetic  production  of 
higher  ideals  of  character  and  life  than  had  prevailed 
in  previous  dispensations,  and  hence,  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  bearing  of  this  doctrine  upon  all  the 
higher  interests  of  humanity  seemed  to  him  to  be 
his  special  vocation. 

That  Fiske  clearly  saw  that  his  generation  was 
passing  through  a  memorable  epoch  in  the  unfold- 
ing of  civilization,  and  that  he  realized  what  the 
doctrine  of  Evolution  meant  to  the  social  well- 
being  of  the  future,  is  evident  from  his  letters  and 
his  essays,  while  those  who  enjoyed  his  personal 

307 


John  Fiske 

friendship  bear  testimony  to  the  radiant  hope  with 
which  (in  the  face  of  much  discouragement)  he 
entered  upon  his  task. 

One  thing  should  be  specially  noted  here.  Among 
scholars  in  America  he  stood  practically  alone  in 
his  advocacy  of  Evolution.  The  only  scholar  with 
whom  he  could  have  familiar  converse  on  this  sub- 
ject was  Professor  Gurney,  but  he  was  too  closely 
identified  with  the  negative  feeling  prevailing  at 
Harvard,  in  regard  to  the  scientific  thought  of  the 
time,  to  act  other  than  as  a  friendly,  conservative 
adviser.  He  sympathized  with  Fiske  in  his  aspira- 
tions and  his  ideals,  but  he  could  not  counsel  Fiske 
to  their  advocacy.  It  is  difficult  at  the  present  time 
to  understand  the  bitter  feeling  the  doctrine  of 
Evolution  brought  forth  at  Harvard  a  generation 
ago.  The  doctrine  was  associated  with  Darwinism, 
or  man's  simian  ancestry,  and  Agassiz  stood  for- 
ward as  the  great  scientific  champion  of  the  theo- 
logical dogma  of  special  Divine  creation.  His  word 
was  law,  in  both  science  and  philosophy;  and  as  he 
had  characterized  Darwinism  as  but  an  ephemeral 
phase  of  English  thought,  and  was  active  in  cham- 
pioning the  idea  of  special  Divine  creation  through- 
out the  organic  world,  the  whole  philosophic  weight 
of  his  teaching  was  thrown  directly  against  any 
rational  philosophy  of  organic  life,  or  of  human 
history.  Both  were  regarded  as  but  the  mysterious 
workings  of  a  Divine  will,  and  this  Divine  will  was 
but  an  outcome  from  the  finite  mind  of  man.  Hence, 

308 


Laws  of  History 

as  we  have  already  seen,  the  courses  in  philosophy 
and  history  were  wholly  unworthy  of  the  college. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  at  this  time,  while  Fiske 
was  preparing  himself  for  a  ministration  a  little 
later  at  Harvard  which  was  to  be  one  of  the  first 
steps  in  a  significant  change  in  all  departments  of 
the  university,  he  was  practically  isolated  in  his 
thought  from  all  the  Harvard  influences.  And  yet 
he  was  not  isolated  from  the  active  world  of  thought 
that  was  surging  around  every  independent,  fair- 
minded  thinker.  Free  to  give  his  mind  its  natural 
tendency,  he  turned  to  the  philosophy  of  history  as 
offering,  through  the  new  light  of  Evolution,  rich 
fields  for  exploration. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  intellectual  freedom  were 
two  essays  on  the  "Laws  of  History/'  in  which  he 
reviewed  some  theories  of  historical  development 
recently  set  forth  by  Goldwin  Smith,  William 
Adam,  John  W.  Draper,  and  Sir  Henry  Sumner 
Maine.  He  sent  these  essays  to  George  Henry 
Lewes,  the  editor  of  the  "Fortnightly  Review,"  the 
organ  of  liberal  thought  in  England,  and  they  were 
promptly  accepted.  These  essays  were  not  repub- 
lished  by  Fiske,  for  the  reason  that  he  used  their 
main  points  in  his  subsequent  writings.  They  are 
of  interest,  however,  in  tracing  the  development  of 
Fiske's  thought,  by  reason  of  the  emphasis  he  put 
upon  certain  points  which  have  since  held  no  un- 
important place  in  the  philosophic  discussion  of 
history.  These  points  were:  — 

309 


John  Fiske 

Fir stt  he  asserted  the  existence  of  a  universal  law 
of  life  governing  all  organic  phenomena  — -  a  law  as 
operative  in  the  development  of  human  society  as  in 
the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  a  law  which 
had  been  defined  by  Spencer  as  "  the  continuous  ad- 
justment of  internal  relations  to  external  relations. " 

Second,  he  claimed  that  human  history  should 
be  regarded  in  relation  to  its  origins,  and  also  in  re- 
gard to  its  wholeness  as  embracing  a  fundamental 
ethical  content. 

Third,  he  denied  the  volitional  theory  of  history 
both  in  regard  to  its  being  the  product  of  man's 
free  will,  or  the  product  of  a  Divine  Will,  so  long 
as  the  latter  is  limited  to  the  finite  conceptions 
of  man — the  Divine  Will  of  theology. 

Fourth,  he  postulated  the  existence  of  "an  all-per- 
vading, all-sustaining  Power,  eternally  and  every- 
where manifested  in  the  phenomenal  activity  of 
the  universe,  alike  the  Cause  of  all  and  the  in- 
scrutable essence  of  all,  without  whom  the  world 
would  become  like  the  shadow  of  a  vision  and 
thought  itself  would  vanish"  —  a  power  far  trans- 
cending any  possible  conception  of  the  human  mind, 
and  whose  manifestations  in  human  history  are  to 
be  truly  traced  only  by  a  careful  and  reverent  study 
of  "the  conditions  of  co-existence,  and  the  modes 
of  sequence  of  historic  phenomena. " 

In  his  notes  for  the  essays  there  appears  the  fol- 
lowing fine  passage  which  does  not  appear  in  his 
text:  — 

"Though  the  history  of  our  lives  written  down 
by  the  unswerving  finger  of  Nature  presents  motive 
and  volition  in  an  ever  unbroken  sequence,  yet  the 

310 


Laws  of  History 

detached  fragments  of  the  record,  like  the  leaves  of 
the  Cumsean  sibyl  caught  by  the  fitful  breeze  of  cir- 
cumstance, and  whirled  wantonly  hither  and  thither 
lie  in  such  intricate  confusion  that  no  ingenuity  can 
enable  us  wholly  to  reconstruct  the  legend.  But 
could  we  attain  to  a  knowledge  commensurate  with 
the  facts  —  could  we  reach  the  hidden  depths, 
where  according  to  Dante,1  the  story  of  Nature 
scattered  over  the  universe  in  truant  leaves,  is  lying 
firmly  bound  in  a  mystic  volume,  we  should  find 
therein  no  traces  of  hazard  or  incongruity." 

In  summing  up  the  points  in  these  two  essays 
Fiske  says:  "  Doubtless  to  many  persons  the  views 
here  maintained  may  seem  all  but  atheistical.  They 
are  precisely  the  reverse.  Our  choice  is  no  longer  be- 
tween an  intelligent  Cause  and  none  at  all.  It  lies 
between  a  limited  Cause,  and  one  that  is  without 
limit";  and  he  adds  that  the  conception  of  a  pre- 
siding Will,  the  product  of  the  finite  mind,  "is  a 
truly  shocking  conception." 

We  should  note  the  distinction  that  Fiske  makes 
here,  for  we  shall  see  him  emphasizing  it  again  and 
again  in  the  years  to  come.  He  does  not  deny  the 
existence  of  God.  What  he  denies  is  the  power  of 
the  finite  mind  to  conceive  God.  What  he  affirms 
is  the  existence  of  a  Divine  Being  transcending  the 
power  of  the  human  mind  in  any  way  to  measure  or 
to  limit.  What  he  denies  is  the  existence  of  any 

1  Dante's  Paradise,  xxxm,  85 :  — 

Nel  suo  profondo  vidi  che  s'interna 
Legato  con  amore  in  un  volume 
Cid  che  per  1'universo  si  squaderna. 

3" 


John  Fiske 

such  limited  Being  as  dogmatic  theology  has  im- 
posed on  the  Christian  world. 

The  first  of  these  essays  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  eminent  historian  George  Grote,  who,  in  writ- 
ing his  friend  Alexander  Bain,  under  date  of  Sep- 
tember 4,  1868,  says:  — 

"The  same  number  ["Fortnightly  Review"  for 
September,  1868]  contained  also  an  admirable  ar- 
ticle upon  the  'Science  of  History,'  written  with 
great  ability  and  in  the  best  spirit  by  an  American 
whose  name  I  never  heard  before  —  John  Fiske.  I 
am  truly  glad  to  find  that  there  are  authors  capa- 
ble, as  well  as  willing,  to  enunciate  such  thoughts. 
This  article  is  the  first  of  an  intended  pair:  it  con- 
tains the  negative  side  exceedingly  well  handled.  I 
scarcely  dare  to  hope  that  the  positive  matter  in  the 
sequel  will  be  equally  good."1 

It  was  while  engaged  upon  these  essays  that 
Fiske,  through  his  friend  Youmans,  heard  with  pro- 
found sorrow  of  Herbert  Spencer's  contemplated 
abandonment  of  the  further  development  of  his 
philosophical  system  owing  to  the  want  of  sufficient 
support.  Fiske  was  stirred  to  prompt  action  in 
Spencer's  behalf,  and  he  sent  to  the  "New  York 
World"  a  brief  yet  remarkably  lucid  exposition  of 
the  philosophy  of  Spencer  with  the  following  earn- 
est plea  for  its  support :  — 

"One  of  Mr.  Spencer's  eminent  countrymen  re- 
marks that  the  closing  of  his  series  of  works  would 
1  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Grote. 
312 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

be  a  blow  to  English  thought  and  a  shame  to  Eng- 
lish education.  The  disgrace  would  not  be  Eng- 
land's alone,  but  would  fall  more  or  less  upon  the 
whole  civilized  world.  Mr.  Spencer's  discoveries, 
though  the  production  of  one  country  and  one 
epoch  are  destined  to  become  the  heritage  of  all 
nations,  and  of  all  time  and  all  are  interested  in 
seeing  that  they  are  not  permanently  brought  to 
a  close." 

Fiske's  thought  at  this  time  turned  strongly  to- 
ward Spencer  personally.  His  deep  interest  in  the 
latter's  philosophy,  his  isolation  in  America  as  an 
advocate  of  that  philosophy,  together  with  the 
knowledge  of  Spencer's  financial  embarrassment  in 
the  publication  of  his  work,  all  combined  to  pro- 
duce in  Fiske's  mind  a  feeling  of  profound  respect, 
if  not  veneration,  for  Spencer  himself.  The  feeling 
of  the  two  men  toward  each  other  and  the  difficul- 
ties under  which  they  were  both  laboring  in  the 
propagation  of  their  philosophical  ideas  are  reflected 
in  the  sort  of  autobiographical  letters  that  passed 
between  them  at  this  time:  — 

Fiske  to  Spencer 

MlDDLETOWN,  CONN.,  June  3,  l866. 

My  dear  Mr.  Spencer:  — 

I  have  allowed  two  years  to  elapse  without  writ- 
ing to  you,  from  a  natural  unwillingness  to  encroach 
upon  your  valuable  time.  At  present,  however,  I 
have  something  to  tell  that  may  interest  you.  But 
first,  let  me  say,  that  since  my  first  letter  to  you  I 

313 


John  Fiske 

have  graduated  at  the  Law  School,  been  admitted 
to  the  Bar,  become  a  husband,  and  a  father,  prac- 
ticed law  a  year,  and  abandoned  the  profession  in 
disgust.  I  have  made  the  discovery  that  I  am,  as 
regards  my  constitutional  relations  to  my  environ- 
ment, an  idealist  and  not  a  realist;  and  that  in  order 
to  accomplish  anything  worthy  I  must  not  seek  to 
quit  my  ideal  world.  I  have  therefore  come  to  a 
quiet  country  town  where  I  expect  to  stay  (alone 
with  my  books  and  family)  until  some  philological 
professorship  or  other  place,  which  " practical" 
men  cannot  fill  shall  take  me  away.  I  shall  devote 
much  time  to  acquiring  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
Sanskrit  and  Greek,  as  the  basis  of  future  labors; 
and  hope  from  time  to  time  to  write  articles,  as 
a  means  both  of  mental  training  and  of  material 
support. 

At  Dr.  Youmans's  request,  I  recently  wrote  for 
"The  World,"  a  New  York  paper,  a  short  exposi- 
tion of  the  Law  of  Evolution  adapted  to  the  com- 
prehension of  newspaper  readers.  There  is  nothing 
remarkable  in  the  article,  but  as  it  relates  to  your 
philosophy  I  send  you  a  copy.  I  also  sent  copies  to 
Mr.  Mill  and  Professor  Huxley,  neither  of  whom  I 
have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  but  who  as  I  thought 
might  be  interested  in  it  by  reason  of  its  subject. 

To  come  to  what  I  had  chiefly  in  mind  in  be- 
ginning this  letter  —  I  hope  to  publish  next  year  a 
volume  of  essays  illustrative  of  your  philosophy, 
entitled  "Essays  of  Evolution,"  unless  I  can  find  a 
better  title.  I  twill  consist  of  the  following  essays: 
I,  the  Evolution  of  Language;  II,  Language  and 
Mythology;  III,  The  Evolution  of  Written  Lan- 
guage; IV,  The  Laws  of  History;  V,  Buckle's 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

Theory  of  History;  VI,  The  Positive  Philosophy; 
VII,  Ancient  Science;  VIII,  The  Influence  of  Ra- 
tionalism. I  wrote  number  VIII  six  months  ago, 
but  the  Editor  of  the  "  North  American  Review/* 
after  enthusiastically  accepting  it,  has  returned  it 
unpublished.  It  will,  I  trust,  appear  elsewhere  be- 
fore long  and  then  I  will  send  you  a  copy.  Number 
IV  is  nearly  finished  and  I  have  offered  it  to  Mr. 
Lewes  for  the  "  Fortnightly. "  The  rest  all  exist  in 
embryo,  except  number  VII,  in  which  I  may  include 
some  remarks  on  Mr.  Lewes's  Aristotle.  Number  V, 
which  I  think  I  sent  you,  will  be  greatly  improved. 
Into  number  VI,  I  wish  to  introduce  some  consider- 
ations respecting  your  true  relations  to  Comte  and 
Mill.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  book  of  this  sort  will 
not  be  wholly  without  raison  d'etre,  even  though  it 
may  contain  but  little  that  is  absolutely  new  under 
the  sun. 

May  I  ask  if  you  know  of  an  English  periodical 
which  will  publish  an  article  on  Positivism?  I 
hardly  dare  apply  to  the  "Westminster";  and  in 
the  "Fortnightly,"  also,  the  ground  is  taken  up. 
I  shall  be  obliged  to  depend  to  a  great  extent  on 
English  reviews,  for  the  Editor  of  the  "North 
American"  looks  askance  at  everything  written 
from  my  point  of  view.  It  is  indeed  almost  impos- 
sible to  deal  with  him,  and  all  the  other  periodicals 
here  are,  I  grieve  to  say,  orthodox  (except  the 
"Christian  Examiner,"  which  is  pecuniarily  poor). 

The  proposed  abandonment  of  your  series  of 
works  has  filled  me  with  consternation  and  sorrow, 
but  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  contemplate  that 
abandonment  as  final.  I  live  in  the  hope  that  the 


John  Fiske 

present  state  of  things  will  sometime  be  changed 
and  that  your  scheme  will  be  ultimately  completed. 
Whatever  can  be  done  in  my  humble  way  to  excite 
interest  in  your  work  will  always  be  cheerfully  done, 
and  as  I  grow  older,  I  trust  that  I  shall  be  able  to  do 
more  than  at  present. 

With  all  the  deep  affection  and  respect  of  a  dis- 
ciple, I  am,  my  dear  sir,  very  truly  yours, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

Spencer  to  Fiske 

88  KENSINGTON  GARDENS  SQUARE, 

LONDON,  June  19,  1866. 
My  dear  Mr.  Fiske:  — 

Your  letter,  received  the  other  day,  gave  me  much 
gratification  as  one  coming  from  so  active  a  sym- 
pathizer was  sure  to  do.  I  read  it,  however,  not  with 
a  uniform  feeling  of  pleasure;  for  some  of  the  pas- 
sages giving  me  an  account  of  your  personal  affairs 
and  prospects  and  intentions  caused  me  some  re- 
gret. Judging  from  my  own  experience  I  fear  that 
you  will  meet  with  much  difficulty  in  getting  an 
adequate  demand  for  the  kind  of  writing  with  which 
you  propose  to  occupy  yourself.  Besides  the  very 
limited  number  of  periodicals  sufficiently  liberal  to 
admit  articles  of  the  kind  you  have  sketched  out, 
there  is  even  among  such  liberal  ones,  a  very  general 
unreadiness  to  receive  such  articles,  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  unattractive  to  readers.  As  I  have 
myself  had  ample  proof  in  the  case  of  the  "West- 
minster Review,"  it  frequently  and  I  believe  gen- 
erally happens,  that  periodicals  established  for  the 
purpose  of  propagating  liberal  opinions,  but  pres- 
ently having  to  struggle  for  existence  from  want  of 
sufficient  support,  are  prone  to  subordinate  their 

316 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

original  aims  to  the  cultivation  of  a  light  literature 
that  will  bring  more  readers,  and  while  there  comes 
to  be  a  great  anxiety  to  secure  lively  articles,  the 
graver  articles,  having  for  their  aim  the  diffusion  of 
the  ideas  which  the  periodical  specially  represents, 
come  to  be  looked  at  coldly,  and  to  be  postponed 
or  declined  in  favor  of  articles  of  a  more  popular 
kind. 

Possibly  this  state  of  things  may  be  less  marked 
in  America  than  it  is  here:  you  have  a  larger  public 
interested  in  advanced  opinions.  This  aspect  of  the 
matter  will  I  fear  be  unexpected  and  disappointing 
to  you ;  for  you  appear  to  imply  the  hope  that  there 
may  be  a  larger  sphere  for  philosophical  writings 
with  us,  than  with  you.  This,  however,  as  I  have 
hinted,  is  by  no  means  the  case,  and  I  fear  there  will 
be  great  difficulty  in  getting  places  here  for  articles 
of  the  kind  you  describe. 

Dr.  Chapman,  the  Editor  of  the  "Westminster/1 
who  has  all  along  been  under  pressure  to  make  as 
much  income  as  he  can  by  it,  has  been  in  the  habit 
of  obtaining  a  considerable  proportion  of  gratuitous 
articles  —  articles  of  the  graver  kind  being  more  es- 
pecially those  for  which  he  is  least  willing  to  pay. 
This,  as  you  may  suppose,  is  an  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  those  who  have  not  established  relations  with 
him.  I  will,  however,  name  the  matter  to  him  — 
mentioning  more  especially  the  article  on  the  "  Evo- 
lution of  Written  Language"  as  one  which  he  might 
look  upon  favorably,  because  it  gives  some  prom- 
ise of  facts  of  popular  interest.  The  only  other 
periodical  besides  the  "Fortnightly  Review"  which 
occurs  to  me  as  a  possible  sphere  is  "Macmillan's 
Magazine."  I  will  speak  to  Professor  Masson  on 

317 


John  Fiske 

the  matter  if  I  can  see  him  before  leaving  town,  and 
will  read  him  the  titles  of  the  articles  you  propose  — 
some  of  which  I  think  he  may  consider  available. 

Thank  you  for  the  copies  of  papers  you  have  been 
so  good  as  to  send  me,  as  also  for  the  labor  you  have 
bestowed  on  the  clear  expositions  they  contain, 
which  will,  I  doubt  not,  be  of  great  service  in  diffus- 
ing general  and  approximate  conceptions.  The  vol- 
ume you  name  would  I  think  help  very  much  to 
popularize  the  general  doctrine  as  well  as  strengthen 
it  by  further  illustrative  matter.  To  the  average 
mind  the  special  applications  to  minor  groups  of 
the  phenomena  are  more  instructive  than  more 
general  expositions;  and  are  especially  desirable  as 
steps  by  which  they  may  ascend  to  a  comprehen- 
sion of  the  whole.  I  hope,  therefore,  that  you  will 
be  able  to  fulfil  your  intentions;  and  shall  be  heartily 
glad  to  hear  that  you  make  the  book  remunerative. 

Respecting  my  own  affairs  to  which  you  so  sym- 
pathetically refer,  you  will  perceive  by  the  notice 
appended  to  the  forthcoming  number,  that  I  have 
cancelled  the  notice  of  cessation  issued  with  the 
last.  An  unforeseen  event  —  the  sudden  death  of 
my  father — has  changed  my  position  so  far  as  will 
enable  me  to  continue  my  work  without  going  on 
sinking  what  little  property  I  possess;  as  I  have 
been  doing  year  by  year  ever  since  I  began  writing 
books.  I  shall  therefore  persevere  as  hitherto,  and 
hope,  indeed,  after  the  completion  of  the  present 
volume,  to  proceed  somewhat  more  rapidly.1 

Very  truly  yours, 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 

1  The  references  in  these  letters  to  the  cessation  by  Spencer  cf 
his  work  on  his  philosophy  and  its  resumption  do  not  tell  the  whole 

318 


New  Era  at  Harvard 

These  letters  are  of  interest  as  showing  how  diffi- 
cult it  was  at  this  time  (1866)  to  get  any  phase  of 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution  before  the  public,  even 
through  the  periodicals  devoted  to  the  propagation 
of  liberal  thought.  Both  Spencer  and  Fiske  lived  to 
see  the  day  when  anything.they  might  write  on  the 
subject  would  be  gladly  welcomed  by  the  leading 
periodicals  and  at  the  highest  rate  of  payment. 

In  the  meantime  events  were  taking  place  at 
Harvard  which  were  destined  completely  to  change 
the  ideals  of  education  and  the  methods  of  instruc- 
tion throughout  the  university.  The  recent  discover- 
ies in  the  physical  and  chemical  sciences  and  their 
applications  in  the  arts  and  the  industries,  the  re- 
sults of  investigations  in  the  physiologico-sociolog- 
ical  sciences  and  their  social  import,  the  advances 
in  historical,  philological,  and  Biblical  criticism 
and  their  bearing  upon  men's  religious  beliefs  and 
ideas  of  causation,  were  bringing  great  changes 
in  the  vocations  of  the  people  and  opening  new 
avenues  for  scholarly  research.  They  were  also  pre- 
senting human  life  in  its  sociological  aspects  as 
of  supreme  importance,  as  well  as  emphasizing,  as 
never  before,  that  the  outcome  of  University  educa- 
tion should  bear  directly  upon  the  production  of  the 


story.  The  month  following  these  letters  (July,  1866)  Youmans 
called  upon  Spencer  and  presented  him  with  seven  thousand  dol- 
lars in  good  securities,  and  a  beautiful  gold  watch  of  American 
manufacture,  as  an  expression  of  appreciation  from  his  American 
friends.  (See  Spencer's  A utobiography,  vol.  n,  p.  165,  Fiske's  Life  of 
Edward  L.  Youmans,  p.  215.) 

319 


John  Fiske 

broadest  efficiency  in  individual  social  serviceable- 
ness. 

In  a  way,  Harvard  was  not  insensible  to  the  on- 
ward trend  of  the  deeper  thought  of  the  time.  With 
men  like  Benjamin  Peirce,  James  Russell  Lowell, 
Asa  Gray,  Ephraim  Gurney,  Jeffries  Wyman, 
Francis  J.  Child,  William  W.  Goodwin,  and  Louis 
Agassiz  as  members  of  her  staff  of  instruction,  she 
could  not  be.  Yet  the  best  aspirations  of  her  faculty 
were  held  in  check  or  thwarted  by  a  system  of 
control  wholly  undemocratic  in  character,  and  which 
held  the  administration  tied  to  mediaeval  ideals 
and  methods  of  education  which  had  been  practi- 
cally outgrown. 

This  year  1866  distinctly  marks  the  beginning  of 
a  new  era  in  the  life  of  Harvard.  As  an  outgrowth 
of  her  Puritanical  foundation,  the  college  had  since 
1810  been  held  in  a  sort  of  vassalage  to  an  external 
ministerial  and  political  control,  exerted  through  a 
Board  of  Overseers.  The  duties  of  this  Board  were 
not  well  defined,  nor  were  its  prerogatives  clearly 
established.  Since  1851  the  Board  had  consisted  of 
the  Governor  of  the  State,  the  Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor, the  President  of  the  Senate,  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  the  Secretary  of  the  State 
Board  of  Education,  the  President  and  the  Treasurer 
of  the  College,  and  thirty  other  persons  elected  by  the 
joint  action  of  both  houses  of  the  State  Legislature. 
The  thirty  persons  elected  by  the  Legislature  were 
citizens  of  the  State  eminent  in  the  professions  and 

320 


New  Era  at  Harvard 

they  represented  more  or  less  the  local  religious  and 
political  interests  of  the  State.  By  virtue  of  its 
political  creation  and  its  vaguely  defined  duties, 
the  Board  assumed  much  authority;  and  often, 
through  its  affirmative  and  its  negative  action, 
proved  a  serious  obstruction  to  needed  changes  in 
the  conduct  of  the  university,  while  the  very  na- 
ture of  its  local,  political  creation  stood  as  a  bar  to 
any  broad  interest  in  the  university  on  the  part  of 
its  alumni. 

In  1865  some  broad-minded  members  of  the 
alumni  sought  to  break  up  this  archaic  ministerial 
and  political  alliance  in  the  control  of  the  univer- 
sity. They  succeeded  in  getting  an  act  through  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature  on  April  28,  1865,  by 
virtue  of  which  the  State  entirely  withdrew  from 
any  further  connection  with  the  Board  of  Over- 
seers, both  on  the  part  of  its  executive  officers  and 
through  the  Legislature.  By  this  act  also  it  was 
ordered,  that,  beginning  with  Commencement  Day, 
1866,  all  future  members  of  the  Board  should  be 
elected  by  the  alumni  of  the  college. 

Accordingly  on  Commencement  Day,  July  19, 
1866,  the  new  method  of  electing  the  Board  of  Over- 
seers was  inaugurated ;  and  as  the  alumni  on  this 
occasion  held  one  of  their  triennial  festivals,  the 
orator  of  the  day,  the  Reverend  Frederick  H. 
Hedge,  D.D.,  an  alumnus  of  the  class  of  1828,  and  a 
liberal-minded  Unitarian  clergyman,  took  the  occa- 
sion of  the  coming  of  the  alumni  as  an  electorate 

321 


John  Fiske 

into  the  government  of  Harvard  as  a  fitting  oppor- 
tunity for  offering  some  suggestions  as  to  needed 
reforms  at  their  Alma  Mater. 

Dr.  Hedge  was  outspoken  in  his  condemnation  of 
the  educational  ideals  and  methods  that  then  pre- 
vailed at  Harvard.  He  described  the  college  "as  a 
place  where  boys  are  made  to  recite  lessons  from 
textbooks,  and  to  write  compulsory  exercises,  and 
are  marked  according  to  their  proficiency  and 
fidelity  in  these  performances,  with  a  view  to  a 
somewhat  protracted  exhibition  of  themselves  at 
the  close  of  their  college  course,  which,  according 
to  a  pleasant  academic  fiction,  is  termed  their 
'  Commencement/ ' 

After  this  arraignment,  Dr.  Hedge  pleaded  for 
the  abolishment  of  the  whole  system  of  marks  and 
college  rank  and  compulsory  tasks,  and  for  the  free- 
dom of  a  true  university  —  freedom  for  the  young 
men  to  select  their  studies  and  their  teachers  from 
the  material  and  the  personnel  that  was  offered  to 
them. 

The  address  was  an  inspiring  call  to  the  alumni, 
now  that  they  had  become  invested  with  no  small 
degree  of  responsibility  for  the  future  conduct  of 
the  university,  so  to  use  their  power  that  their 
beloved  Alma  Mater  might  "lay  off  the  pr&texta  of 
its  long  minority,  and  take  its  place  among  the 
universities,  properly  so  called,  of  modern  times." 

Fiske  came  up  to  this  Commencement  for  his 
degree  of  M.A.,  and  heard  Dr.  Hedge's  address. 

322 


New  Era  at  Harvard 

Shortly  after  I  met  him  with  Professor  Gurney. 
Fiske  was  delighted  with  the  address,  and  was  full 
of  enthusiasm  for  the  possible  development  of  Har- 
vard, now  that  the  shackles  which  had  bound  her 
to  the  past  had  been  broken  and  her  alumni  had 
become  a  positive  force  in  her  government.  In  the 
course  of  the  conversation  Fiske  expressed  the  hope 
that  Dr.  Hedge's  address  would  be  supplemented 
by  a  more  detailed  statement  of  what  the  reform 
at  Harvard  should  be,  and  the  ground  upon  which 
it  should  be  based.  Professor  Gurney  then  said: 
"John,  why  don't  you  write  such  a  paper  your- 
self? You  can  do  it."  "Yes,"  said  Fiske,  "but  I 
am  not  sufficiently  known,  and  I  don't  know  where 
I  could  get  such  a  paper  published. "  I  then  said: 
"There  is  no  doubt  but  Mr.  Fields  would  take  it  for 
the  '  Atlantic  Monthly/  l  as  he  is  greatly  interested 
in  this  whole  question  here  at  Harvard,  and  has 
arranged  to  print  Dr.  Hedge's  address  in  the  next 
number  of  the '  Atlantic.' "  Professor  Gurney  imme- 
diately said:  "John,  here  is  your  chance.  You  are 
just  the  man  for  this  task.  You  know  the  conditions 
here  and  what  the  nature  of  the  reform  should  be.  Go 
in  and  identify  yourself  with  the  new  movement!" 
The  next  day  I  brought  the  matter  to  Mr. 
Fields's  attention,  and  he  was  only  too  glad  to  fol- 
low up  in  the  "Atlantic  "  Dr.  Hedge's  address  with 
such  a  paper  as  Fiske  proposed.  Accordingly  I 

1  James  T.  Fields  was  then  the  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
and  I  was  one  of  its  publishers. 

323 


John  Fiske 

arranged  with  Fiske  for  an  article  on  "  University 
Reform"  of  about  ten  pages.  He  sent  me  the 
article  in  November  following,  and  Mr.  Fields  was 
so  greatly  pleased  with  it  that,  in  paying  for  it, 
a  substantial  sum  was  added  to  the  stipulated 
price.  The  article  was  published  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly  "  for  April,  I867.1 

One  cannot  read  this  article  to-day  without  be- 
ing impressed  by  the  clear  insight  with  which  Fiske 
viewed  the  various  problems  of  University  educa- 
tion that  then  confronted  Harvard  and  the  judicial 
fairness  with  which  they  were  brought  under  con- 
sideration. He  defined  the  object  of  university  edu- 
cation to  be  the  teaching  of  "  the  student  how  to 
think  for  himself,  and  then  to  give  him  the  material 
to  exercise  his  thought  upon."  He  then  adds: 
"  When  a  University  throws  its  influence  into  the 
scale  in  favor  of  any  party,  religious  or  political, 
philosophic  or  aesthetic,  it  is  neglecting  its  conse- 
crated duty,  and  abdicating  its  high  position.  It 
has  postponed  the  interests  of  truth  to  those  of 
dogma."  His  appraisement  of  the  distinctive  values 
of  the  mathematical,  the  scientific,  the  historical, 
and  the  classical  studies,  and  his  adjustment  of 
them  in  a  well-rounded  scheme  of  University  edu- 
cation, were  very  clearly  set  forth,  while  his  sugges- 
tions for  introducing  the  elective  system  under  the 
varied  conditions  of  elementary  education  which 

1  My  recollections  in  regard  to  this  article  are  confirmed  by 
Fiske's  letters  to  his  mother,  written  at  this  time. 

324 


University  Reform 

so  seriously  handicapped  every  freshman  class  at 
Harvard,  show  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  had 
studied  this  very  perplexing  phase  of  the  general 
problem. 

As  might  be  expected,  he  emphasized  the  impor- 
tance of  providing  for  fine  scholarship  at  the  uni- 
versity, by  establishing  a  course  of  post-graduate 
instruction.  This,  however,  was  not,  perhaps,  the 
immediate  need  of  the  college  so  much  as  the  getting 
a  right  appraisement  of  the  undergraduate  studies, 
with  good  methods  of  instruction.  He,  of  course, 
touched  upon  some  of  the  police  regulations  by 
which  the  undergraduate  life  was  so  absurdly  har- 
assed, but  in  no  unfilial  way  —  these  shortcomings 
were  simply  survivals  of  obsolete  social  conditions 
and  should  be  quietly  brushed  away. 

The  argument  and  the  whole  tone  of  the  article 
were  admirably  adapted  to  further  the  object  for 
which  the  best  friends  of  Harvard  were  then  work- 
ing —  a  reform  and  not  a  revolution  in  the  conduct 
of  the  university.  The  article  was  widely  read,  and 
it  served  a  good  purpose  in  crystallizing  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  reform.  It  distinctly 
identified  Fiske  with  the  new  movement,  albeit  his 
well-known  Evolutionary  views — or  his  Positivism, 
as  Darwinism  or  any  phase  of  Evolutionary  thought 
was  then  called  —  tended  to  make  him  persona  non 
grata  to  some  of  the  leaders  in  the  movement.1 

1  This  article,  entitled  "University  Reform,"  is  included  in 
Fiske's  collected  works,  in  the  volume  Darwinism  and  Other 
Essays. 

325 


John  Fiske 

The  record  of  his  brief  literary  sojourn  in  Middle- 
town  may  well  close  with  the  following  jubilant 
extract  from  a  letter  to  Roberts  concerning  James 
Bryce's  "Holy  Roman  Empire."  This  is  another 
instance  of  his  " striking  true"  in  his  estimates  of 
the  really  fine  things  in  literature.  Under  date  of 
December  16,  1866,  he  writes:  — 

"Well,  my  boy,  I  have  finished  Gibbon  at  last, 
and  have  derived  therefrom  much  healthful  nutri- 
ment to  my  soul  as  well  as  to  my  notebooks ;  hav- 
ing made  upwards  of  400  notes  on  the  8  vols.  But 
now,  O  Zeus  SCDTTJP  !  Yesterday  and  to-day  I  have 
had  the  greatest  intellectual  treat  since  I  first 
read  Maine.1  I  have  one  of  the  good  old  fits 
of  enthusiasm  upon  me.  Get,  old  fellow,  out  of 
the  Athenaeum,  and  read  Bryce's  'Holy  Roman 
Empire/  Caesarism,  Papacy,  Feudalism,  World- 
Empire,  World-Church,  Guelfs,  Ghibellines,  Terri- 
torial Sovereignty,  mediaeval  philosophy,  politics, 
religion  —  mediaeval  ideas  generally  —  are  all  eluci- 
dated here  as  never  before.  It  will  clarify  your 
ideas  of  history  more  than  almost  any  book  you 
ever  read.  And  it  is  written  in  a  charming  style 
to  boot.  Worth  reading  once  a  year  as  we  used 
to  say  of  Mill's  '  Logic/  Yes,  sir,  James  Bryce, 
B.C.L.,  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford,  is  one  of  the  rising 
stars  of  the  age.  Do  get  it  and  read  it;  it  can  be 
read  as  quickly  as  Maine.  By  Jove,  the  rising  gen- 
eration in  England  is  hard  at  work.  I  am  eager 
to  get  hold  of  E.  A.  Freeman's  'Lectures  on  the 
Saracens/  I  think  of  reviewing  Bryce,  using  its 
principles  to  illustrate  the  late  war  in  Germany." 
1  See  ante,  p.  286. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  REFORM  AT  HARVARD  UNDER  WAY  —  MOVES 
TO  CAMBRIDGE  —  DOMESTIC  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE  — 
REVIEW  AND  ESSAY  WRITING  —  DIVERSIONS  — 
CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SPENCER 

1866-1868 

MEANWHILE  dissatisfaction  with  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Hill  as  President  of  Harvard  was  increas- 
ing. A  most  worthy  man  in  the  ordinary  amenities 
of  life,  and  well  fitted  for  pastoral  duties,  he  was 
without  any  high  degree  of  scholarship  and  was 
lacking  in  executive  efficiency.  He  was  therefore 
singularly  out  of  place  as  Harvard 's  chief  execu- 
tive at  this  very  important  period  in  her  develop- 
ment. The  first  convocation  of  the  alumni  for  the 
election  of  members  to  the  Board  of  Overseers  gave 
clear  indication  that  in  the  new  electorate,  now  in- 
vested with  a  large  degree  of  responsibility  in  the 
conduct  of  the  university,  there  was  a  very  posi- 
tive feeling  that  the  first  step  in  the  way  of  reform 
was  the  complete  breaking  up  of  the  current  idea 
that  the  presidency  of  the  university  was  a  sort 
of  perquisite  belonging  to  the  clergy  of  the  Uni- 
tarian denomination. 

The  participation  of  the  alumni  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Harvard  started,  therefore,  at  the  very  be- 
ginning, with  ideas  of  reform  in  various  directions. 

327 


John  Fiske 

This  was  a  development  Fiske  had  not  considered 
when  he  retired  to  Middletown.  By  the  time  he 
had  finished  his  article  for  the  "Atlantic,"  how- 
ever, he  was  made  aware  by  Professor  Gurney  and 
others  of  the  rapid  spread  of  the  reform  movement 
now  that  it  had  a  status  in  the  government  itself 
of  the  university.  He  bethought  himself,  therefore, 
to  return  to  Cambridge  and  establish  a  home  in 
close  proximity  to  the  college,  where  he  could  be  in 
touch  with  the  friends  of  the  reform  movement  and 
ready  to  lend  a  hand  whenever  needed.  In  this  pro- 
ject he  was  encouraged  by  his  friends  in  Cambridge. 
He  also  had  the  support  of  his  mother  and  Mr. 
Stoughton  as  well  as  of  Mrs.  Fiske's  family.  Con- 
sequently the  month  of  March,  1867,  saw  him  very 
happily  settled  in  a  house  of  his  own  at  123  Oxford 
Street,  Cambridge. 

Fiske's  domiciliation  at  Cambridge  was  coinci- 
dent with  the  publication  of  his  article  on  "  Uni- 
versity Reform"  in  the  " Atlantic  Monthly,"  and 
he  was  cordially  welcomed  by  all  the  liberal- 
minded  people  connected  with  the  university.  Mr. 
Longfellow,  Professors  Lowell,  Peirce,  Child,  Gur- 
ney, Gray,  and  Goodwin  were  very  emphatic  in 
their  commendations  of  his  article  as  well  as  cor- 
dial in  welcoming  him  back  to  the  social  life  of 
Cambridge. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  linger  over  the  letters  of 
this  period  to  his  mother,  in  which  he  gives  in  a 
delightful  way  the  details  of  the  ups  and  downs 

328 


JOHN   FISKE   IN  1867 


Moves  to  Cambridge 

attendant  upon  his  youthful  experience  in  home- 
building,  where  provisions  for  literary  work  and 
high  philosophic  thinking  were  made  coincident 
and  harmonious  with  the  details  of  his  domestic 
social  life.  In  the  midst  of  all,  his  second  child, 
Harold  Brooks  Fiske,  was  born. 

The  letters  give  so  many  touches  of  a  purely 
personal  character,  revelations  of  the  finely  tem- 
pered soul  behind  the  scholar  and  the  critic,  that  a 
few  extracts  are  in  place  here.  After  getting  his 
family  settled  in  the  new  home  he  writes:  — 

"Our  house  is  rather  a  gem  in  its  way,  being 
perfectly  convenient  —  all  the  rooms  being  very 
pleasant  and  there  is  lots  of  sunshine  coming  into 
it.  It  is  such  a  jolly  feeling  to  be  in  a  home  of  my 
own,  and  back  among  literary  men,  that  I  boil  over 
with  good  nature  all  the  time  —  don't  get  cross  at 
anything,  and  so  get  credit  for  being  a  gem  of  a 
boy!  When  it  is  really  only  the  result  of  circum- 
stances. I  have  thus  far  been  up  at  six  o'clock 
every  morning,  and  have  done  a  good  slice  of  work 
before  breakfast. " 

In  a  letter  a  few  days  later  he  reveals  his  aesthetic 
taste.  His  mother  had  given  him  a  sum  of  money 
as  a  birthday  present,  and  in  acknowledging  its 
receipt,  he  writes:  — 

"  After  some  discussion  and  contemplation  I  re- 
solved to  put  it  into  something  —  yea  even  into 
the  one  thing  —  which  our  house  lacked,  to  wit:  a 
picture  for  the  parlour  chimney-piece.  So  after 
a  thorough  inspection  of  the  treasures  at  De  Vries', 

329 


John  Fiske 

Abby  and  I  selected  a  magnificent  engraving;  viz. 
Benvenuto  Cellini  in  his  workshop  at  Fontainebleau, 
showing  his  newly-finished  statue  of  Jupiter  To- 
nans  to  Francis  I  and  some  members  of  his  court. 
The  group  is  very  grand ;  all  the  separate  pieces  are 
portraits.  Cellini  stands  in  a  noble  attitude  in  the 
centre,  pointing  to  the  great  statue  elevated  on 
the  right;  his  sculptor's  tools  and  a  few  unfinished 
works  lie  around.  King  Francis  and  his  Mistress, 
the  Duchesse  d'Etampes,  sit  in  carved,  high- 
backed  chairs  to  the  left,  gazing  at  the  statue  just 
uncovered.  On  the  back  of  the  Duchesse's  chair 
leans  Margaret  de  Valois,  Queen  of  Navarre,  and 
grand-mother  of  Henri  Quatre.  Behind  her  stands 
her  husband  Henri  d' Albert;  by  her  side,  Catherine 
de  Medicis,  and  her  husband,  afterwards  Henry 
II.  In  the  background  is  the  Cardinal  Jean  de 
Lorraine,  chief  of  the  house  of  Guise.  The  faces 
are  so  good  that  I  recognized  most  of  them  at 
once.  Nothing  could  be  finer  than  the  tout  en- 
semble; and  nothing  could  have  gone  further  to 
make  our  parlour  pleasant  and  elegant." 

From  the  very  beginning  of  his  daughter  Maud's 
learning  to  talk,  Fiske  became  a  close  observer  of 
her  linguistic  development,  and  the  letters  are 
many  that  make  mention  of  her  naive  efforts  to 
conjoin  sound  and  meaning  in  her  childish  prattle. 
Let  one  instance  suffice.  He  had  already  reported 
her  use  of  the  phrase  " pick-a-wow " ;  he  now  adds: 

"She  has  developed  the  phrase  'pick-a-wow' 
into  '  peck-a-boo,'  from  which  I  think  that '  pick-a- 
wow '  was  meant  for  picture  book.  I  shall  quote  her 

330 


Domestic  Life 

'puttaba'  for  apple,  as  it  throws  some  light  on 
the  origin  of  language.  She  can  say  'dear*  and 
'papa';  but  putting  them  together  makes  'dear- 
wawa.'  Now  this  change  occurs  regularly  in  Welsh 
compounds,  and  throws  great  light  on  the  conso- 
nantal structure  of  the  Aryan  languages. " 

Fiske's  reading  at  this  period,  while  as  discursive 
as  ever,  was  yet  in  its  general  trend  related  to 
modern  culture,  which,  by  the  great  advancement 
in  the  sciences,  was  assuming  a  new  significance  in 
his  mind.  His  writing  at  this  time  was  confined  to 
book  reviews,  many  of  which  were  really  essays, 
in  which  is  shown  the  ready  command  he  had  of 
his  wide  and  varied  knowledge.  The  more  not- 
able among  these  review-essays  were:  "The  Life 
and  Works  of  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing,"  by 
Adolf  Stahr;  Longfellow's  "  Translation  of  Dante" ; 
Alger's  "History  of  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future 
Life";  Fel ton's  "Greece  —  Ancient  and  Modern"; 
Youmans's  "Culture  for  Modern  Life  ";  Whitney's 
4 '  Lectures  on  Language ' ' ;  Matthew  Arnold's  ' '  Cel- 
tic Literature,"  etc. 

The  quality  of  his  review  writing  was  such  as  to 
make  it  in  great  demand,  and  periodicals  and  jour- 
nals like  the  "North  American  Review,"  the  "At- 
lantic Monthly,"  the  "Christian  Examiner,"  the 
"Nation,"  the  "New  York  World,"  and  the  "Bos- 
ton Advertiser"  were  solicitors  for  review  notices 
of  important  works;  so  much  so  that  during  the 
summer  of  1867,  Fiske  writes:  — 

33i 


John  Fiske 

"  I  am  terribly  busy  to-night  as  usual,  but  must 
turn  aside  from  work  a  minute  to  give  you  a  bit 
of  surprising  news.  You  will  be  proud  to  hear  that 
I  have  been  elected  a  Member  of  the  American 
Oriental  Society.  I  was  notified  of  it  to-day  by 
a  note  from  Prof.  Whitney  (Prof,  of  Sanskrit  at 
Yale).  I  was  thoroughly  surprised  by  it,  not  expect- 
ing anything  of  the  sort  for  some  years  to  come." 

"I  have  had  my  fill  of  book-noticing  for  one 
while;  but  the  end  does  n't  seem  to  have  come. 
More  work  is  offered  me  than  I  can  do.  I  don't 
expect  to  make  a  business  of  this  transient  work: 
but  it  will  do  for  a  while." 

With  his  usual  discursive  reading  and  this  re- 
view writing,  and  at  odd  times  working  upon  the 
plot  of  ground  that  surrounded  his  house,  the  sum- 
mer of  1867  was  passed.  The  autumn  found  him 
well  established  in  a  home  of  his  own,  and  free  to 
work  out  the  various  literary  projects  that  were 
germinating  in  his  mind.  His  social  surroundings 
were  indeed  pleasant.  William  D.  Howells,  re- 
cently called  to  the  editorship  of  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly,"  was  a  near  neighbor.  Norton's  delight- 
ful home  was  not  far  away.  Longfellow,  Lowell, 
Child,  and  Asa  Gray  among  others  had  called,  and 
had  welcomed  him  and  Mrs.  Fiske  to  their  homes: 
while Gurney,  J.  M.  Peirce  (son  of  Benjamin  Peirce), 
N.  S.  Shaler,  Chauncey  Wright,  William  James,  the 
psychologist,  John  K.  Paine,  the  eminent  composer, 
and  his  faithful  Middletown  friend,  George  L. 
Roberts,  were  frequent  visitors.  In  this  widely 

332 


Wide  Reading 

cultured  atmosphere  Fiske  found  not  only  generous 
appreciation,  but  also  much  stimulating  thought.1 

The  letters  for  1868  reveal  still  further  Fiske's 
simple,  happy  domestic  life,  his  methodical  way 
of  working,  his  constantly  expanding  thought,  his 
great  productiveness,  and  his  steadily  growing 
reputation. 

The  expanding  minds  of  his  children  and  their 
childish  ways  are  a  constant  delight,  as  well  as  of 
deep  interest  to  him.  We  get  charming  glimpses  of 
little  Maud  —  especially  of  her  incursions  into  his 
library,  and  her  arrangements  of  his  books  accord- 
ing to  her  childish  fancy  instead  of  their  subject 
order — and  his  treatment  of  her  visits  as  pleasant 
episodes  in  his  daily  routine  of  work,  rather  than 
as  troublesome  interruptions. 

Fiske's  reading  this  year  covered  more  than  a 
hundred  volumes  in  English,  French,  and  German, 
comprising  the  latest  thought  along  the  lines  of 
history,  philology,  physiology,  the  sciences,  and 
philosophy,  with  a  generous  mingling  of  general 

1  One  incident  connected  with  this  period  is  worth  relating. 
Fiske  and  Chauncey  Wright  —  the  best  of  friends  —  while  in  agree- 
ment on  the  question  of  Darwinism,  were  in  apparent  opposition  in 
regard  to  many  points  in  the  philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer.  Their 
discussions  were  many  and  were  often  prolonged  to  a  late  hour.  One 
summer  evening  the  discussion  had  been  exceptionally  vigorous; 
and  when  Wright  started  for  home,  Fiske  set  out  to  accompany  him 
a  little  way.  Fiske  walked  to  Wright's  gate,  and  the  discussion  not 
being  finished,  Wright  walked  back  to  Fiske's  gate.  Not  having 
then  arrived  at  any  concluding  point,  the  two  started  again  for 
Wright's  home  —  and  this  gate-to-gate  discussion  was  continued 
until  the  light  of  a  new  day  forced  its  postponement. 

333 


John  Fiske 

literature.  Complementary  in  a  measure  to  his 
reading  was  the  production  of  some  twenty  essays 
or  book  reviews,  the  more  notable  of  which  were 
essays  on  "Liberal  Education "  and  "Myths  of 
the  New  World/'  published  in  the  "North  Ameri- 
can Re  view ";  and  reviews  in  the  "New  York 
World  "  of  Lewes's  "  History  of  Philosophy/1  Mot- 
ley's "United  Netherlands/'  Lessing's  "Nathan 
the  Wise"  (in  which  Fiske's  religious  ideas  are 
clearly  indicated),  Froude's  "Short  Stories  on 
Great  Subjects,"  Freeman's  "Norman  Conquest," 
Max  Miiller's  "Chips  from  a  German  Workshop," 
Taine's  "Philosophy  of  Art,"  and  George  Eliot's 
"Spanish  Gipsy." 

Some  of  these  papers  were  republished  by  Fiske 
in  his  volumes  of  essays;  all  were  characterized  by 
a  wealth  of  learning  bearing  upon  the  several  sub- 
jects treated,  'and  also  by  a  spirit  of  judicial  fair- 
ness in  statement  and  discussion  that  reminds  one 
of  that  master  of  critical  style,  Sainte-Beuve. 

We  have  also  to  note  that  at  this  time  there  was 
shaping  in  his  mind  the  project  of  a  work  about  the 
size  of  the  first  volume  of  Buckle's  "History  of 
Civilization  in  England,"  to  be  entitled  "Studies 
in  Philosophy";  a  work  "that  would  be  an  illus- 
tration, though  by  no  means  a  mere  exposition,  of 
the  views  of  Mr.  Spencer." 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  year  Fiske  in- 
dulged in  a  bit  of  polemical  criticism  that  attracted 
no  little  attention  at  the  time,  and  which  showed 

334 


Essay  Writing 

his  quality  as  a  skilful  debater.  James  Parton,  a 
popular  writer,  had  published  a  little  book  entitled 
"Smoking  and  Drinking, "  in  which  he  sought  to 
maintain  the  two  theses,  that  the  coming  man 
would  not  smoke,  nor  would  he  drink  wine.  It  was 
a  very  superficial  work  made  up  of  illogical  asser- 
tions and  perversion  of  much  physiological  knowl- 
edge; yet  it  was  warmly  welcomed  by  an  ti- tobacco 
and  temperance  reformers,  as  a  conclusive  argu- 
ment against  the  use  of  tobacco  and  of  alcohol  in 
any  form  or  degree  whatever. 

Fiske's  attention  as  critic,  or  public  reviewer 
was  called  to  the  book;  and,  as  in  his  psycho- 
physiological  investigations  he  had  given  much 
attention  to  the  effects  of  narcotics  upon  the  hu- 
man organism,  he  thought  the  great  importance  of 
temperance  in  the  use  of  tobacco  and  alcohol  could 
be  much  more  convincingly  shown,  through  a  clear 
and  popular  presentation  of  the  laws  of  physiologi- 
cal action  in  regard  to  these  two  narcotics,  than 
through  the  heated  assertions  of  ignorant  social 
reformers  who  denied  all  virtue  to  them  whatever 
in  pharmacology,  and  who  saw  in  their  use  the 
source  of  all  social  ills.  Accordingly  he  took  Mr. 
Parton's  essay  under  consideration,  and  applying 
to  it  sound  physiological  and  pathological  knowl- 
edge combined  with  common  sense,  he  so  com- 
pletely shattered  its  contention  that  no  rejoinder 
was  attempted. 

Fiske's  essay  was  published  by  his  friend  Henry 

335 


John  Fiske 

Holt,  in  a  little  volume  under  the  title  of  "  Tobacco 
and  Alcohol:  It  does  Pay  to  Smoke  —  The  Coming 
Man  will  Drink  Wine."  The  essay  attracted  much 
attention  at  the  time,  and  Fiske  received  many 
commendations  of  it  from  leading  members  of  the 
medical  profession.  In  tracing  the  development  of 
Fiske's  philosophic  thought,  the  essay  is  of  interest 
as  showing  the  wide  diversity  and  accuracy  of  his 
knowledge. 

Among  his  pleasurable  recreations  of  the  year, 
two  are  especially  worthy  of  note,  because  of  their 
high  artistic  character  and  his  intense  enjoyment 
of  them.  These  were  the  Readings  of  Charles 
Dickens  from  his  own  works,  and  the  presentation 
of  a  series  of  great  tragedies  by  Edwin  Booth  and 
Madame  Janauschek  in  combination.  In  his  re- 
creations as  in  his  serious  work  Fiske's  taste  in- 
variably asserted  itself  in  demanding  what  was 
best.  He  instinctively  guarded  his  mind  against 
wasting  itself  on  frivolous  things.  We  have  seen 
his  great  fondness  for  the  works  of  Charles  Dickens, 
whose  various  characters  became  in  his  mind 
familiar  friends.  The  Readings  by  Dickens  in 
Boston,  in  which  (with  his  great  mimetic  power)  he 
gave  masterly  personations  of  some  of  the  charac- 
ters he  had  created,  was  one  of  the  chief  artistic 
features  of  the  season.  Fiske  entered  into  the  en- 
joyment of  these  Readings  with  a  full  appreciation 
of  their  quality,  as  he  found  Dickens  hardly  less 

336 


Diversions 

great  in  the  presentation  of  character  through  the 
dramatic  art  than  in  creating  character  through 
the  literary  art.  As  a  result  of  these  Readings 
Dickens's  characters  had  a  new  birth  in  Fiske's 
mind.  They  became  more  distinctly  Dickensized, 
and  remained  his  faithful  companions  to  the  last. 
Fiske  was  profoundly  impressed  by  the  dramatic 
genius  of  Janauschek.  As  a  dramatic  artist  he 
placed  her  beside  Mrs.  Siddons.  He  gives  a  fine 
bit  of  critical  appreciation  in  a  description  of  her 
rendering  of  Lady  Macbeth;  but  what  is  of  greater 
interest  is  the  account  of  a  call  he  made  upon  her. 
Fiske  had  made  her  acquaintance  in  New  York. 
Under  date  of  November  4,  1868,  he  writes:  — 

"  Yesterday  I  called  on  Janauschek.  Had  a  most 
delightful  time  and  staid  two  hours.  For  about 
half  an  hour  we  talked  in  German,  and  I  succeeded 
in  talking  it  very  well.  Then  we  changed  to  Eng- 
lish which  she  has  learned  since  April.  Then  we 
mixed  up  languages  just  as  came  handy,  and  so 
had  a  most  charming  talk.  I  found  her  to  be  very 
highly  cultivated,  her  knowledge  of  things  being  by 
no  means  limited  to  tragedy  and  acting.  Her  talk 
was  so  entertaining,  her  eyes  so  bright  and  her  face 
so  full  of  expression,  that  I  thought  it  about  as 
great  a  pleasure  to  sit  and  talk  with  her  as  to  see 
her  on  the  stage.  We  talked  about  Greek  tragedy, 
Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Corneille,  German  politics, 
mythology,  and  all  sorts  of  things.  I  told  her  about 
Maud's  strutting  about  with  a  tragic  air  and  call- 
ing herself  Janauschek,  and  she  was  exceedingly 
pleased  at  the  idea.  She  professed  herself  to  be 

337 


John  Fiske 

crazy  over  children,  and  said  she  wished  I  would 
call  again  and  bring  das  kleine  Mddchen  with  me. 
Perhaps  I  shall  if  I  can  get  time.  To-night,  Abby 
and  I  are  going  to  see  her  in  Mary  Stuart." 

I  have  reserved,  as  a  fitting  close  to  the  record  of 
this  year,  the  following  letter  of  Fiske  to  Spencer, 
as  it  has  a  sort  of  autobiographical  interest. 

OXFORD  STREET,  CAMBRIDGE, 
September  27,  1868. 

My  dear  Mr.  Spencer:  — 

Having  for  some  time  felt  an  inclination  to  write 
to  you  in  reply  to  your  letter  of  June  19,  1868,  I 
am  now  stimulated  to  do  so  by  the  circumstance 
that  I  wish  to  ask  a  favour  of  you. 

(Fiske  asks  Spencer  to  have  sent  to  him  two 
numbers  of  the  parts  of  the  "Biology,"  which  he 
had  failed  to  receive,  and  which  he  could  not  get 
in  America.) 

I  am  better  able  now  than  when  I  received  it,  to 
answer  your  letter  expressing  misgivings  as  to  the 
possibility  of  my  succeeding  in  a  literary  career. 
I  could  then  only  hope:  I  can  now  point  to  some- 
thing achieved.  I  now  laugh  at  the  times  when  I 
dreamed  of  paying  my  monthly  bills  by  means  of 
money  earned  from  English  reviews.  I  soon  learned 
that  magazines  alone  would  never  give  work  enough 
to  keep  one  from  starving ;  and  that  in  order  to  suc- 
ceed, I  must  attach  myself  to  a  daily  paper.  I 
therefore  made  an  arrangement  with  Mr.  Marble, 
editor  of  the  "New  York  World,"  to  write  for  him 
causeries  on  literary  and  philosophical  subjects  as 

338 


Letter  to  Spencer 

often  as  I  pleased.  His  terms  were  so  generous  that 
my  ability  to  earn  is  limited  only  by  my  ability  to 
produce;  and  that,  in  point  of  quantity,  is  about 
300  columns,  equivalent  to  two  or  three  octavos 
per  year.  Thus,  so  far  as  money  goes,  I  am  cer- 
tainly prospering.  In  March,  1867,  I  became  the 
owner  of  a  pleasant  little  house  in  Cambridge,  and 
planted  with  my  own  hands  the  maples  which  I 
hope  will  shade  me  in  my  old  age.  I  live  in  my 
library,  walled  with  books,  like  a  mollusc  in  his 
shell,  writing  six  hours,  reading  six,  and  sleeping 
nine,  all  days  except  Sunday:  always  well,  and 
hardly  ever  more  than  pleasantly  weary;  and  have 
reason,  therefore,  to  believe  that  I  am  "seeing  my 
best  days."  The  difficulty  of  doing  anything  elab- 
orately and  the  necessity  of  constantly  writing 
crude  thoughts,  occur  to  trouble  me:  but  these 
things,  with  due  economy  of  time,  may  by  and  by 
be  changed.  At  any  rate,  my  thoughts  are  always 
busy  with  philosophical  subjects;  and  this  is  cer- 
tainly far  better  than  to  be  wasting  one's  strength, 
physical,  intellectual  and  emotional  in  harassing 
law-cases. 

I  have  published  no  magazine  articles  during  the 
past  two  years  except  one  on  "  University  Reform," 
in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  April,  1867,  upon 
which,  I  am  proud  to  say,  the  University  have  seen 
fit  to  base  several  reformatory  acts;  and  one  on 
"Liberal  Education"  in  the  "North  American 
Review"  July,  1868.  Of  my  two  papers  on  the 
"Laws  of  History,"  after  a  delay  of  more  than  two 
years,  the  first  has  appeared  in  the  "Fortnightly"; 
and  when  I  behold  every  one  of  the  gross  typo- 
graphical errors  (such  as  would  not  pass  unchal- 

339 


John  Fiske 

lenged  by  the  first  proof-reader  at  our  University 
Press,  and  which  I  carefully  corrected  on  the  proof- 
sheets  in  1866)  conscientiously  reproduced,  it  is 
difficult  to  bear  the  sight  with  philosophic  resigna- 
tion, or  wholly  to  refrain  from  the  use  of  language 
having  theologic  implications.  In  the  second  of 
these  papers  on  the  "Laws  of  History "  there  are 
some  speculations  which,  though  too  briefly  stated, 
may  perhaps  interest  you.  In  a  future  paper  in 
the  "  North  American"  I  hope  to  devote  fifty  pages 
to  what  I  have  said  in  the  last  six  or  eight  of  the 
second  part  of  the  present  article. 

I  am  eager  to  see  your  "  Psychology  "  finished  and 
your  "Sociology"  begun,  and  gladly  hailed  the 
appearance  of  No.  20  as  an  indication  that  you 
were  again  going  to  work  with  renewed  health  and 
vigour.  It  was  with  pleasure  that  I  heard,  some 
time  ago,  that  you  were  coming  to  this  country,  and 
it  is  with  disappointment  that  I  see  spring  and 
autumn  go  by  without  bringing  you.  When  you 
come,  you  will  doubtless  not  fail  to  look  at  Cam- 
bridge; and  I  shall  esteem  it  a  favour  if  you  will 
consider  my  house  and  myself  entirely  at  your  ser- 
vice, so  long  as  you  like  to  be  about  here. 

Meanwhile,  dear  Sir,  believe  me, 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

JOHN  FISKE. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A  MEMORABLE  YEAR  TO  HARVARD  AND  TO  FISKE 
—  ELECTION  OF  CHARLES  W.  ELIOT  AS  PRESI- 
DENT—  FISKE  CALLED  TO  LECTURE  ON  THE  POSI- 
TIVE PHILOSOPHY  —  ELIOT'S  INAUGURATION  — 
WIDE  EFFECT  OF  FISKE's  LECTURES 

1869 

THE  year  1869  was  a  memorable  one  in  the  history 
of  Harvard  and  a  very  important  one  in  the  life  of 
Fiske.  In  September,  1868,  the  Reverend  Thomas 
Hill  resigned  as  President  of  Harvard,  and  the 
year  1869  opened  with  the  Reverend  Andrew  P. 
Peabody  acting  as  President  ad  interim.  There 
was  much  strife  as  to  the  professional  character  of 
the  person  who  should  be  chosen  to  fill  the  vacancy ; 
that  is,  as  between  a  clergyman  and  a  professional 
educator.  Conservative  people,  impressed  by  Har- 
vard's long  line  of  clerical  Presidents,  would  follow 
precedent;  and  all  those  friends  of  Harvard  who 
wished  to  see  a  distinctly  religious  character  main- 
tained in  the  administration  of  the  university, 
albeit  that  religious  character  was  of  the  negative 
Unitarian  faith  of  the  period,  would  fain  have  a 
candidate  selected  from  the  Unitarian  clergy.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  newer  life  and  fresher  thought 
which  were  permeating  the  great  body  of  the 
alumni  had  already  gained  several  strong  repre- 

34i 


John  Fiske 

sentations  on  the  Board  of  Overseers,  who  saw  a 
better  state  of  things  for  their  beloved  alma  mater 
only  through  the  complete  breaking-up  of  the 
clerical  domination  of  the  past,  and  the  bringing  of 
the  University,  in  all  its  educational  provisions, 
into  line  with  the  conditions  of  modern  culture 
and  social  development.  These  representatives  of 
university  reform  naturally  sought  a  candidate  for 
President  among  professional  educators  rather  than 
among  clergymen. 

In  December  and  January  this  Harvard  Presi- 
dential canvass  appears  to  have  been  in  a  sort  of 
tentative  stage  of  crystallization  around  two  can- 
didates, the  Reverend  Andrew  P.  Peabody,  D.D., 
the  candidate  of  the  conservative  party,  and  Pro- 
fessor Ephraim  W.  Gurney,  the  candidate  of  the 
reform  party. 

At  the  height  of  the  discussion  James  Russell 
Lowell  and  E.  L.  Godkin,  the  editor  of  the  "New 
York  Nation/'  asked  Fiske  for  a  trenchant  article 
for  the  "Nation,"  on  the  situation  at  Harvard, 
with  special  reference  to  advancing  the  candidacy 
of  Professor  Gurney.  Fiske  wrote  the  article,  which 
was  published  as  an  editorial  in  the  "Nation" 
of  December3i,  1868,  under  the  title  of  "The  Pres- 
idency of  Harvard  College."  It  was  an  admir- 
able article,  well  balanced  against  both  toryism 
and  radicalism,  and  holding  even  scales  for  rational 
reform. 

In  view  of  what  took  place  a  short  time  after, 

342 


A  Memorable  Year 

the  following  paragraph  from  this  article  is  of  in- 
terest :  — 

"To  sum  up,  then:  What  we  do  not  want  is  a 
mere  business  man,  a  fossil  man,  an  ultra-radical 
man,  or  a  clergyman.  What  we  do  want,  is  a  man 
of  thorough  scholarship  —  not  a  specialist,  not  a 
mere  mathematician,  or  physicist,  or  grammarian; 
but  a  man  of  general  culture,  able  to  estimate  at 
their  proper  importance  the  requirements  of  cul- 
ture, and  at  the  same  time  endowed  with  sound 
judgment,  shrewd  mother  wit,  practical  good  sense. 
If  such  a  man  is  to  be  found  among  those  who  have 
already  taken  a  part  in  the  management  of  the 
college,  so  that  he  will  come  to  his  new  office  with 
some  adequate  knowledge  of  the  work  before  him, 
so  much  the  better;  he  will  be  the  better  able  to 
understand  what  the  college  needs.  If  he  should 
also  happen  to  be  found  among  those  who  have 
been  graduated  within  the  past  twenty  years,  he 
will  be  the  better  able  to  understand  what  the 
present  time  requires." 

The  article  made  a  great  impression  at  Cam- 
bridge. It  presented  the  whole  situation  so  clearly 
and  fairly  that  it  practically  killed  the  candidacy 
of  Dr.  Peabody,  while  it  paved  the  way  for  a 
greater  reformer  than  Professor  Gurney. 

Shortly  after  the  publication  of  Fiske's  article  in 
the  "Nation,"  there  appeared  in  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly"  for  February,  1869,  the  first  of  two 
articles  entitled  "The  New  Education  —  Its  Or- 
ganization"; the  second  appearing  in  the  March 
number.  These  two  articles  comprised,  first,  a  re- 

343 


John  Fiske 

view  of  the  recent  attempts  in  this  country  to  or- 
ganize a  system  of  practical  education  based  chiefly 
on  the  pure  and  applied  sciences,  the  modern  lan- 
guages, and  mathematics,  instead  of  upon  Greek, 
Latin,  and  mathematics  as  in  the  established  col- 
lege system;  and,  secondly,  a  discussion  of  what 
should  be  the  preparatory  training  of  a  youth  who 
is  to  enter  a  scientific  or  technological  school  by  the 
time  he  is  seventeen  years  old. 

Under  these  two  subject  divisions  was  clearly 
set  forth  the  need  of  a  high-grade  technical  educa- 
tion for  the  youth  of  America,  to  be  developed  har- 
moniously, side  by  side  with,  and  out  of  similar 
preparatory  schooling  for,  the  broadest  collegiate 
education.  These  articles  were  written  by  Charles 
William  Eliot,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Miner- 
alogy at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 
and  one  of  the  recently  elected  members  of  the 
Board  of  Overseers  of  Harvard  College.  They  at- 
tracted wide  public  attention,  and  since  they  re- 
vealed the  possession  by  the  writer  of  a  clear  com- 
prehension of  the  needs  of  higher  education  in  the 
two  fields  of  technological  training  and  collegiate 
culture,  together  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
various  problems  attending  all  higher  education 
arising  from  the  varied  conditions  of  preparatory 
or  secondary  education  throughout  the  country, 
attention  was  at  once  directed  to  Professor  Eliot  as 
a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  of  Harvard.  There 
was  much  beside  in  his  favor.  He  was  an  alumnus 

344 


Election  of  President  Eliot 

of  the  class  of  1853.  He  had  been  Assistant  Pro- 
fessor in  the  Departments  of  Mathematics  and  of 
Chemistry.  He  possessed  executive  ability  of  a 
high  order,  and  was  in  the  prime  of  manhood.  All 
these  considerations,  fused  as  they  were  in  a  per- 
sonality marked  by  great  force  of  character,  made 
Professor  Eliot  particularly  acceptable  to  the  ad- 
vocates of  reform  at  Harvard,  and  after  a  short 
canvass,  he  was,  on  the  I2th  of  March,  1869, 
chosen  President  of  the  University  by  the  Cor- 
poration, and  this  choice  was  confirmed  by  the 
Board  of  Overseers  on  the  igth  of  May  following. 

Fiske,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  took  great  in- 
terest in  this  election,  and  although  his  predilec- 
tions were  strong  in  favor  of  Professor  Gurney,  he 
readily  acquiesced  in  the  choice  of  President  Eliot. 
And  he  had  not  long  to  wait  for  the  institution  of 
great  and  wise  reforms,  in  which  he  was  to  bear  a 
part,  in  both  the  ideals  and  methods  of  education 
throughout  the  university. 

Before  entering,  however,  upon  the  significant 
changes  which  soon  began  at  Harvard,  and  which 
were  fraught,  as  we  shall  see,  with  great  impor- 
tance to  the  subsequent  life  of  Fiske,  we  should 
pause  to  take  a  glance  at  his  domestic  and  liter- 
ary life  during  the  first  half  of  this  year  1869.  The 
letters  reveal  the  same  abounding  delight  in  his 
home  surroundings  and  especially  in  the  expand- 
ing minds  of  his  children  —  that  we  have  noted  in 
previous  years.  On  the  loth  of  May,  a  second  son, 

345 


John  Fiske 

Clarence  Stoughton  Fiske,  was  born  into  his  fam- 
ily circle. 

The  letters  also  reveal  the  high  order  of  his 
thought.  His  reading  appears  to  have  been  mainly 
of  a  philological  character,  while  his  productive 
writing  was  limited  to  three  essays  —  "Ancient 
and  Modern  Life,"  published  in  the  "New  York 
World";  "The  Genesis  of  Language,"  published  in 
the  "North  American  Review";  "Are  we  Celts  or 
Teutons?"  published  in  "Appleton's  Journal."  He 
also  gave  much  thought  to  collecting  material  for, 
and  preparing  a  volume  on  "Liberal  Education," 
as  well  as  one  on  the  "Evolution  of  Language." 
But  these  two  projects  did  -not  materialize  —  for, 
as  we  shall  soon  see,  he  had  his  mind  and  his  hands 
full  of  work  in  another  direction. 

One  incident  of  this  period  is  worth  noting  as 
showing  his  growing  reputation  as  a  thinker  and  a 
writer.  He  received  from  responsible  parties  in 
New  York  an  offer  of  the  editorship  of  a  free- trade 
journal  at  a  salary  of  six  thousand  dollars  per  year. 
This  offer  he  declined. 

It  was  in  June,  while  absorbed  in  the  problems  of 
language  and  their  bearing  on  the  doctrine  of  Evo- 
lution, and  also  while  mulling  over  his  projected 
volume  on  Education,  that  he  received  from  Presi- 
dent Eliot  a  call  for  a  special  service  at  the  univer- 
sity which  roused  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his  nature. 
It  appears  that  President  Eliot  was  preparing, 
among  other  things,  to  inaugurate  his  administra- 

346 


Lecturer  at  Harvard 

tion  by  bringing  within  the  pale  of  the  university 
provisions  for  the  broadest  interpretations  of 
philosophy.  To  this  end,  while  allowing  Professor 
Bowen,  from  his  chair  of  philosophy  within  the 
college,  to  fulminate  at  will  against  recent  progress 
in  philosophic  thinking,  he  determined  that  un- 
der the  auspices  of  the  university  undergraduates 
and  all  persons  interested  in  philosophic  discussion 
should  have  critically  and  fairly  interpreted  the 
" thoughts  that  move  mankind"  embodied  in 
the  leading  philosophic  systems  —  especially  in  the 
modern  systems.  Accordingly,  he  arranged  for  the 
academic  year  1869-70  seven  courses  of  univer- 
sity lectures  on  Philosophy,  two  of  which  were  to 
represent  recent  philosophic  thought  —  thought 
which  had  been  particularly  taboo  at  Harvard. 

The  first  of  these  two  courses  in  significance  at 
the  time  was  the  one  on  "The  Natural  History 
of  the  Intellect,"  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  The 
significance  of  this  course  arose  from  the  fact  that 
ever  since  Emerson's  famous  address  before  the 
Harvard  Divinity  School  in  1838,  and  while  during 
the  intervening  years  his  thought  had  been  a  great 
illuminating  moral  force  in  the  culture  of  the  mod- 
ern world,  Emerson,  as  a  philosophic  thinker,  had 
been  persona  non  grata  at  Harvard. 

The  second  of  these  two  notable  courses  was  one 
on  what  was  then  called  "The  Positive  Philosophy." 
At  this  period  the  English  Evolutionary  school 
of  philosophy  had  not  been  clearly  differentiated 

347 


John  Fiske 

from  what  was  known  as  the  Scientific  or  Positive 
Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte.  As  the  latter  was 
first  in  the  field  and  had  found  some  favor  in  Eng- 
land, the  rising  Evolutionary  thought  in  England, 
also  based  on  Science,  was  by  theologians  identi- 
fied with  Comtism,  and  by  them  baptized  with  all 
the  philosophico-atheistical  vagaries  that  they  read 
into  the  Positive  Philosophy  of  Comte.  The  reader 
should  bear  in  mind  that  this  was  in  the  year  1869, 
when  the  bitter  theological  controversy  started  by 
the  publication  of  Darwin's  "Origin  of  Species11 
and  Spencer's  "First  Principles"  of  Evolution  was 
at  its  height,  and  that  Positivism  in  the  public 
mind  was  the  summation  of  infidel  philosophy  and 
included  along  with  the  vagaries  of  Comte,  Dar- 
winism and  Spencer's  theory  of  Evolution.  Presi- 
dent Eliot  appears  to  have  seen  somewhat  the  op- 
posing philosophical  principles  that  were  jumbled 
together  in  the  popular  conception  of  the  "Posi- 
tive Philosophy";  and  it  is  a  fair  inference  that  he 
desired  such  an  exposition  of  this  philosophy  as 
should  clearly  set  forth  both  its  Comtian  and  its 
English  Evolutionary  connotations.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  selected  Fiske. 

The  high  purpose  and  the  moral  courage  of  the 
new  President  could  not  have  been  better  shown 
than  in  inaugurating  his  administration  by  these 
two  acts  —  the  summoning  of  Emerson  and  Fiske, 
with  their  respective  subjects,  into  service  at  the  Uni- 
versity in  the  highest  department  of  knowledge. 

348 


Lecturer  at  Harvard 

Fiske  responded  favorably  to  President  Eliot's 
request,  and  his  reasons  for  doing  so  are  fully  given 
in  a  letter  to  his  mother  of  July  5,  1869.  He  writes: 

"As  you  will  see  from  the  enclosed  slip,  I  have 
been  chosen  as  one  of  the  university  lecturers  on 
Philosophy  for  the  year  1869-70.  The  subject  on 
which  I  have  been  especially  invited  to  deliver  a 
course  of  from  12  to  20  lectures,  is  Positivism.  .  .  . 
Eliot  invited  me,  and  I  accepted  sur  le  champ,  for 
it  gives  me  a  chance  to  elaborate  the  book  which  I 
have  had  lying  in  scraps  for  4  years  on  this  subject. 
There  are  two  aspects  from  which  this  event  may 
be  viewed  —  the  sentimental,  and  the  practical. 

"I.  From  the  sentimental  aspect  it  is  worthy  of 
notice,  that  only  8  years  ago  I  was  threatened  with 
dismissal  from  college  if  caught  talking  Comtism 
to  any  one.  Now,  without  any  solicitation  on  my 
part,  I  am  asked  to  expound  Comtism  to  the  col- 
lege, and  defend  or  attack  it  as  I  like.  This  shows 
how  vast  is  the  revolution  in  feeling  which  has 
come  over  Harvard  in  8  years,  and  which  is  shown 
among  other  things  in  the  election  of  such  a  Presi- 
dent as  Eliot.  I  silently  regard  this  as  a  triumph 
for  me,  and  the  pleasantest  kind  of  vengeance! 

"II.  Practically,  this  is  a  very  great  honour,  and 
is  considered  so  by  every  one  —  to  be  chosen  as 
lecturer  along  with  such  eminent  men  as  Emer- 
son and  Cabot.  Furthermore,  if  I  do  myself  credit 
in  the  lectures,  my  success  for  the  future  is  almost 
certain.  The  days  of  old  fogyism  here  are  num- 
bered, and  the  young  men  are  to  have  a  chance. 
I  have  a  chance  now  to  come  out  strong,  as  Mark 
Tapley  says;  and  if  I  improve  it  I  shall  be  sure  to 
get  into  the  college  as  professor  before  a  great  while. 

349 


John  Fiske 

Eliot  has  a  great  liking  for  me  now.  He  thinks 
my  article  helped  to  get  him  elected.  He  saw  the 
best  side  of  my  college  career.  He  never  had  any 
prejudice  against  me.  He  never  gave  me  anything 
but  a  perfect  mark  in  my  recitations.  Now  he  is 
prepared  to  be  pleased  with  anything  I  may  do. 
He  expects  me  to  do  a  good  thing,  and  I  must  do 
it.  It  won't  do  to  fail  or  only  half  succeed.  There- 
fore I  want  to  throw  my  whole  force  into  this  thing, 
and  come  out  with  brilliant  success.  No  subject 
could  have  been  better  selected  for  me  to  treat! 
I  have  studied  Comte  off  and  on,  for  10  years; 
have  already  mapped  out  a  discussion  of  his  doc- 
trines ;  have  a  good  many  original  views  about  him ; 
have  once  believed  in  him,  but  do  so  no  longer; 
so  that  I  can  criticize  him  without  misrepresent- 
ing him;  and  the  subject,  moreover,  is  one  of  great 
variety,  embracing  questions  of  science,  logic,  phil- 
osophy, ethics,  history  and  religion,  so  that  I  can 
bring  almost  all  my  reading  to  bear  upon  it.  I 
don't  want  to  have  people  say  merely,  that  I  did 
very  well.  I  want  to  make  a  profound  stir,  and 
have  people  say:  '  Well,  now  here  is  something  new; 
these  are  philosophical  lectures  such  as  one  does  n't 
hear  every  term.'  In  short,  I  want  to  conquer  a 
permanent  position  here;  and  I  believe  I  can  do  it." 

Animated  with  this  high  purpose,  Fiske  spent 
the  rest  of  the  summer  in  finishing  some  literary 
work  he  had  in  hand  for  the  "New  York  World," 
in  revising  his  essay  on  "The  Genesis  of  Language" 
for  the  "North  American  Review,"  in  reading 
Plato  and  two  or  three  recent  works  on  Positivism, 
and  blocking  out  his  course  of  lectures  in  his  mind. 

350 


Lecturer  at  Harvard 

A  good  portion  of  the  time  was  spent  with  his  fam- 
ily at  the  delightful  ancestral  Brooks  homestead 
in  Petersham;  and  the  letters  give  charming  pic- 
tures of  his  sweet  family  life  with  his  children  in 
this  beautiful  old  town,  which,  associated  as  it  was 
with  the  tenderest  feelings  of  his  nature,  he  loved 
to  call  his  home. 

Early  in  September  we  find  him  back  in  Cam- 
bridge and  fully  " squared  away"  at  his  lectures. 
His  method  of  work  is  of  interest  as  revealing  the 
firm  mental  grasp  of  his  subject,  and  also  the  or- 
derly way  in  which  he  held  the  wide  and  varied 
knowledge  essential  to  his  purpose  at  ready  com- 
mand. He  first  mentally  blocked  out  the  whole 
course  of  eighteen  lectures  with  a  distinctive  title 
for  each  lecture.  There  is  no  indication  whatever 
that  he  made  any  preliminary  sketch  or  outline  of 
any  of  the  lectures.  I  do  find,  however,  that  he 
took  into  consideration  the  time  at  his  command  — 
the  lectures  were  to  begin  October  26  —  and  that 
he  made  a  careful  computation  of  the  quantity  of 
manuscript  to  be  prepared  and  the  time  limit  to 
be  given  to  the  preparation  of  each  lecture.  The 
result  was  that  a  lecture  must  be  written  each 
week. 

Considering  the  vast  knowledge  in  the  depart- 
ments of  science,  history,  sociology,  and  philoso- 
phy that  had  to  be  brought  into  order  and  made 
subservient  to  the  end  in  view,  this  was  a  most  ex- 
traordinary undertaking.  So  wisely  was  the  whole 


John  Fiske 

scheme  planned,  however,  so  carefully  had  he  meas- 
ured his  own  powers,  that  the  course  was  carried 
through  without  the  slightest  interruption.  The 
lectures  when  delivered  were  marked  by  such  a  full, 
lucid,  easy-flowing  style  of  exposition,  as  gave  no 
indication  whatever  of  undue  pressure  or  haste  in 
their  composition. 

Fiske's  article  on  "The  Genesis  of  Language," 
to  which  reference  has  been  made,  was  published 
in  the  October  number  of  the  "North  American 
Review."  In  this  article,  after  a  brief  survey  of 
the  field  of  philological  discussion  Fiske  advanced 
some  new  views  in  regard  to  disputed  points  in  the 
interpretation  of  linguistic  phenomena.  Starting 
with  the  simple  juxtapositive  form  of  objective 
words  as  the  barbaric  genesis  of  language,  he  traced, 
by  a  process  of  subjective  elimination  and  inte- 
gration, the  gradual  development,  through  the  ag- 
glutinative languages,  of  the  present  highly  com- 
plex inflexional  or  amalgamative  languages.  In  brief, 
his  article  was  an  attempt  to  apply  the  principles 
of  Evolution  to  some  of  the  problems  of  philology. 

Fiske  sent  a  copy  of  this  article,  not  only  to  Her- 
bert Spencer,  but  also  to  Dr.  J.  Muir,  an  eminent 
Sanskrit  scholar  at  Edinburgh,  to  Professor  Max 
Miiller,  the  distinguished  philologist  at  Oxford,  and 
to  Michel  Breal  at  Paris,  Professor  of  Sanskrit  in 
the  College  de  France.1 

1  While  this  article  was  highly  commended  for  its  erudition,  Fiske 
never  reprinted  it. 

352 


President  Eliot  Inaugurated 

Fiske's  letters  to  his  mother  during  October, 
while  showing  his  steady  progress  with  his  lec- 
tures, give  also  an  account  of  an  occurrence  at  Har- 
vard which  has  passed  into  history  as  one  of  the 
most  memorable  events  in  the  life  of  the  univer- 
sity, and  from  what  we  have  already  seen  was  an 
event  of  great  significance  to  Fiske  —  the  inaugura- 
tion of  President  Eliot,  and  his  inaugural  address. 
As  the  delivery  at  Harvard  of  such  a  course  of  lec- 
tures as  we  are  about  to  consider  had  been  made 
possible  through  the  action  of  President  Eliot, 
Fiske's  impression  of  the  new  President's  inau- 
gural address  has  a  historic  value  as  well  as  a  per- 
sonal interest  here.  On  the  2Oth  of  October,  1869, 
he  writes :  — 

"Yesterday  President  Eliot  was  inaugurated. 
Abby  and  I  went  to  the  Church.  The  music  was 
perfectly  sublime.  I  don't  know  when  I  ever  heard 
anything  equal  to  it.  Eliot's  Inaugural  address 
was  also  very  fine  indeed.  I  never  before  heard  a 
speech  so  grand  and  impressive.  It  lasted  an  hour 
and  three  quarters;  and  during  all  you  might  have 
heard  a  pin  drop,  save  when  the  old  arches  rang 
with  thunders  of  applause.  We  are  going  to  have 
new  times  here  at  Harvard.  No  more  old  fogyism, 
I  hope.  Abby  was  moved  to  tears;  and  I  felt  'the 
chokes  come'  many  times  at  the  grand  ideas  he 
put  forth.  We  have  got  for  President  a  young  man 
and  a  practical  genius.  Everybody  so  far  as  I  know, 
went  away  feeling  that  the  light  of  a  new  day 
had  dawned  upon  us.  I  had  a  very  high  opinion  of 
Eliot  before,  but  I  had  no  idea  of  what  was  in  him, 

353 


John  Fiske 

till  I  heard  him  yesterday  announce  his  views.   In 
the  evening  I  went  to  his  reception. " 1 

Another  incident  connected  with  these  lectures 
and  related  to  the  philosophic  ideas  they  were  to 
set  forth  is  of  interest  here  —  the  interchange  of 
letters  between  Fiske  and  Herbert  Spencer.  Only 
the  main  points  in  the  letters  will  be  noted. 

Under  date  of  October  6,  1869,  Fiske  sends 
Spencer  proof-sheets  of  his  article  in  the  "North 
American  Review"  on  " The  Genesis  of  Language" 
and  he  explains  how  he  proposes  to  elaborate 
this  in  connection  with  his  essay  on  "The  Evo- 
lution of  Language,"  published  in  1863,  into  a 
volume  which  should  be  an  illustration  of  the  law 
of  Evolution  applied  to  language.  He  tells  Spencer 
this  volume  "will  set  forth  results  of  philological 
as  well  as  philosophical  value,  obtained  by  the  ap- 
plication of  your  doctrine  and  method  to  a  set  of 
phenomena  which  you  have  not  yet  come  to  treat 

1  As  the  inauguration  of  President  Eliot  was  such  a  memorable 
event  in  the  history  of  Harvard,  I  give  an  extract  from  the  charge 
of  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Overseers,  the  Honorable  John  H. 
Clifford,  as  he  placed  the  keys,  the  ancient  charter,  and  the  seal  of 
the  college  in  President  Eliot's  hands,  —  these  being  the  symbols 
and  the  warrant  of  the  authority  conferred  upon  him  as  Harvard's 
official  head,  —  and  also  President  Eliot's  response. 

President  Clifford  said :  — 

"  When,  sir,  the  far-reaching  issues  that  are  involved  in  the  great 
trust  now  confided  to  you,  and  the  influence  its  wise,  faithful  and 
efficient  performance  is  to  exert  upon  the  country  and  the  world  are 
measured  and  understood;  when  we  reflect  that  we  indulge  but  a 
reasonable  hope  in  looking  forward  from  your  period  of  life,  that 
through  this  day's  proceedings  your  hand  will  be  instrumental  in 
leading  the  minds  and  moulding  the  characters  of  a  larger  number 
of  the  best  youth  of  the  country  than  were  guided  by  any  of  your 

354 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

in  detail";  and  he  asks  for  any  suggestions  Spencer 
has  to  offer  on  his  proposed  task. 

He  then  gives  some  particulars  in  regard  to  the 
course  of  lectures  he  has  in  hand  —  the  circum- 
stances under  which  he  was  called  to  deliver  them, 
the  ground  he  proposes  to  cover,  and  the  difficulty 
he  finds  in  the  endeavor  to  give  an  interpretation 
of  the  philosophy  of  Evolution  under  the  title  of 
"  Positive  Philosophy, "  by  reason  of  the  various 
connotations  of  Positivism  in  the  public  mind.  He 
calls  for  a  new  title  for  the  new  Evolutionary  phil- 
osophy—  one  that  shall  differentiate  it  entirely 
from  the  "  Philosophic  Positive  "  of  Auguste  Comte. 
He  does  not  think  Spencer's  proposed  title,  "  Syn- 
thetic Philosophy/'  sufficiently  generic. 

This  statement  in  regard  to  the  lectures  leads 

predecessors,  —  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say,  that  the  ceremony 
surpasses  in  interest  and  importance  any  that  accompanies  the 
investiture  of  ruler  or  magistrate  with  the  functions  of  civil  govern- 
ment, however  imposing  or  significant  they  may  be.  ...  Tender- 
ing you,  therefore,  the  awaiting  confidence,  the  cordial  sympathies 
and  the  ready  cooperation  of  the  Fellows  and  Overseers,  —  in  their 
name  and  in  their  behalf,  I  now  greet  and  welcome  you  as  the  Presi- 
dent of  Harvard  College." 

President  Eliot's  response:  — 

"Mr.  President,  —  I  hear  in  your  voice  the  voice  of  the  Alumni 
welcoming  me  to  high  honours  and  arduous  labours,  and  charging  me 
to  be  faithful  to  the  duties  of  this  consecrated  office.  I  take  up  this 
weighty  charge  with  a  deep  sense  of  insufficiency,  but  yet  with 
youthful  hope  and  a  good  courage.  High  examples  will  lighten  the 
way.  Deep  prayers  of  devoted  living  and  sainted  dead  will  further 
every  right  effort,  every  good  intention.  The  university  is  strong 
in  the  ardor  and  self-sacrifice  of  its  teachers,  in  the  vigor  and  wis- 
dom of  the  Corporation  and  Overseers,  and  in  the  public  spirit  of 
the  community.  Above  all,  I  devote  myself  to  this  sacred  work  in 
the  firm  faith  that  the  God  of  the  fathers  will  be  also  with  the 
children." 

355 


John  Fiske 

him  to  refer  to  the  great  changes  that  have  taken 
place  at  Harvard  during  the  past  eight  years  — 
since  the  time  when,  as  an  undergraduate,  he  was 
threatened  by  the  President  with  immediate  ex- 
pulsion if  detected  in  disseminating  "Positive" 
ideas  among  his  fellow  students;  whereas  he  has 
now  been  called  to  expound  to  the  students  from 
the  lecturer's  chair  these  same  "pernicious  opin- 
ions." He  then  tells  how  the  change  has  been 
brought  about,  by  overthrowing  the  clerical  do- 
mination of  the  college  and  placing  the  governing 
power  in  the  alumni,  who,  as  an  electorate,  choose 
the  Board  of  Overseers.  Fiske  concludes  his  state- 
ment thus:  "So  the  university  governs  itself:  the 
alumni  elect  competent  men  for  Overseers,  who 
choose  a  modern  man  for  President,  who  appoints 
a  Spencerian  as  lecturer  —  and  this  is  the  house 
that  Jack  built." 

Spencer  replied  to  this  under  date  of  November 
I,  1869:  — 

"I  congratulate  you,  Harvard,  and  myself,  on 
the  event  of  which  your  letter  tells  me.  It  is 
equally  gratifying  and  surprising.  That  eight  years 
should  have  wrought  such  a  change  as  to  place  the 
persecuted  undergraduate  in  the  chair  of  lecturer 
is  something  to  wonder  at,  and  may  fill  us  with 
hope,  as  it  must  fill  many  with  consternation." 

Spencer  approved  of  Fiske's  proposed  volume 
on  language,  and  made  some  pertinent  suggestions, 
but  admits  that  he  is  hardly  prepared  to  offer  any 

356 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

positive  criticism.  He  finds  Fiske's  programme  of 
his  lectures  inviting,  but  regrets  the  use  of  the  title 
"  Positive  Philosophy,"  and  fears  that  the  confu- 
sion between  Comtism  and  English  Positivism  will 
be  worse  confounded.  He  writes:  "The  scientific 
world  in  .England,  in  repudiating  *  Comtism/  re- 
pudiates also  the  name  'Positivism1  as  the  name 
for  that  general  aggregate  of  scientific  doctrine  to 
which  they  adhere."  He  then  makes  this  sugges- 
tion: "Why  should  you  not  by  using  some  neutral 
title  avoid  committing  yourself  in  any  way?  Might 
not  such  a  title  as  'Modern  Philosophy*  or  'The 
Philosophy  of  the  Time*  or  'Reformed  Philoso- 
phy1 —  or  something  akin,  answer  the  purpose?" 

The  whole  tone  of  Spencer's  letter  shows  his 
appreciation  of  Fiske's  growing  power. 

As  both  letters  refer  to  the  confusion  of  thought 
that  then  existed  in  regard  to  the  nature  and  im- 
plications of  Comtism,  Positivism,  and  the  rising 
philosophy  of  Evolution,  a  brief  explanation  is  in 
place  here. 

For  a  number  of  years  the  "Philosophic  Posi- 
tive" of  Auguste  Comte  had  been  in  the  field  as  a 
philosophy  based  on  science,  as  a  philosophy  freed 
from  all  ontological  metaphysics  —  in  short,  as  the 
last  word  in  philosophy.  While  it  made  parade  of 
much  scientific  and  historic  knowledge,  and  while 
it  contained  many  suggestive  insights  into  the 
great  universe  of  cosmic  phenomena,  as  a  philo- 
sophical system  it  was  so  overladen  with  Comte's 

357 


John  Fiske 

purely  subjective  ideas,  and  was  withal  so  atheis- 
tical in  its  implications,  that  it  met  with  the  utmost 
hostility  from  the  theological  world,  and  only  a  lim- 
ited, quasi-support  from  the  scientific  world.  Posi- 
tivism, therefore,  in  the  public  mind,  was  classed 
as  a  sort  of  scientific  atheism. 

About  1860  the  philosophy  of  Evolution  arose 
out  of  the  discovery  of  the  correlation  of  physical 
forces  by  Mayer,  Joule,  Helmholtz,  the  scientific 
labors  of  Darwin  in  tracing  the  origin  of  species  in 
the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  and  the  philo- 
sophic thought  of  Herbert  Spencer,  seeking  for 
some  universal  principle  underlying  the  whole 
realm  of  the  cosmic  universe.  This  philosophy 
presented  the  cosmic  universe,  including  man,  as 
forever  unfolding,  as  evolving  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  stage  of  phenomenal  existence.  It  was  also 
founded  on  science,  and  presented  all  knowledge  as 
relative  to  human  experience,  as  conditioned  by 
human  experience.  It  could  not  rest,  however,  on 
the  relativity  of  knowledge  as  an  ultimate  datum, 
and  it  therefore  postulated  as  its  final  ultimate  the 
highest  ontological  conception  that  has  been  given 
in  the  whole  history  of  philosophy  —  an  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Being,  far  beyond  the  determination 
of  science,  far  beyond  the  power  of  the  human 
mind  to  cognize,  as  the  source  and  sustentation  of 
the  whole  cosmic  universe. 

This  Evolutionary  philosophy,  by  reason  of  its 
rising  above  and  beyond  all  metaphysical  onto- 

358 


Evolutionary  Philosophy 

logical  speculation,  was  not  comprehended  in  its 
profound  theistic  implications  by  the  theological 
folk.  It  was  by  them  denounced  as  atheistic  in 
character,  and  at  one  with  the  Positive  philosophy 
of  Comte  —  as  in  fact  the  Comtian  philosophy  in 
an  English  guise. 

We  shall  see  both  Spencer  and  Fiske  contending 
for  years  to  come  against  this  confusion  of  thought 
in  regard  to  the  Positive  and  the  Evolutionary 
philosophies.  At  present  we  have  to  note  Fiske's 
purpose,  which  was  to  show  the  completeness  of  a 
philosophy  based  on  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  as 
an  explanation  of  the  Cosmos,  and  by  contrast  to 
point  out  the  very  serious  shortcomings  of  the 
philosophy  of  Comte.  He  labored,  however,  under 
one  serious  disadvantage  —  alluded  to  by  Spencer 
—  a  public  misconception  of  the  scope  of  his  lec- 
tures. The  title  was  a  misnomer.  They  were 
called  "Lectures  on  the  Positive  Philosophy " :  they 
were,  in  fact,  "Lectures  on  the  Evolutionary  Phil- 
osophy versus  the  Positive  Philosophy." 

While  Fiske's  direct  purpose  was  the  setting- 
forth  of  philosophic  doctrine,  he  was  well  aware 
that  the  religious  implications  of  this  doctrine 
would  not  find  acceptance  among  the  believers 
in  a  revealed  religion,  in  a  religion  based  on  theo- 
logical dogmas  transcending  scientific  verification. 
He  well  knew  that  by  such  people  the  profoundly 
religious  character  of  the  Evolutionary  philosophy 
would  be  entirely  overlooked,  and  that  he  would 

359 


John  Fiske 

come  under  severe  condemnation  as  an  atheist  and 
an  infidel.  Yet  he  was  not  deterred  from  express- 
ing his  full  thought;  and  the  sincerity  of  his  con- 
viction that  he  was  setting  forth  a  Divine  truth 
of  a  higher,  more  commanding  religious  charac- 
ter than  any  born  of  theological  assumptions  — 
a  truth  that  would  ultimately  become  universal 
among  thinking  men  —  was  so  strong,  that  it  gave 
to  his  whole  exposition  a  deeply  reverent  tone. 

The  lectures  began  October  26  and  were  con- 
tinued to  December  10,  1869.  Ordinarily  they 
would  have  passed  without  special  comment  be- 
yond the  collegiate  circle.  The  audience,  although 
appreciative,  was  small  and  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  revolutionary  in  character.  Yet  an  explo- 
sion was  at  hand.  Professor  Youmans,  in  New 
York,  ever  on  the  lookout  for  opportunities  to 
advance  the  Spencerian  philosophy  of  Evolution, 
arranged,  with  Fiske's  consent,  for  the  publication 
of  the  lectures  unabridged  in  the  "New  York 
World."  The  first  lecture  appeared  in  the  "  World" 
for  November  13,  1869,  with  a  little  flourish  of  the 
editorial  trumpet  over  the  significance  of  such  a 
course  of  lectures  at  Harvard.  Immediately  an 
alarm  was  sounded  at  what  was  called  "Harvard's 
Raid  on  Religion,"  and  a  wave  of  bitter  objurga- 
tion and  denunciation  broke  forth  from  the  religi- 
ous and  a  portion  of  the  secular  press,  against  Har- 
vard, President  Eliot,  Fiske,  and  the  "World," 
in  which  it  was  charged  that  the  institution  and 

360 


Effect  of  his  Lectures 

publication  of  these  lectures  was  "part  of  a  plan 
obtaining  among  free-thinkers  to  disseminate  far 
and  wide  attacks  upon  the  system  of  revealed 
religion." 

This  outburst  of  religious  intolerance,  so  wide- 
spread and  so  virulent  in  character,  fairly  startled 
the  quiescent  conservative  feeling  in  Cambridge 
into  questioning  as  to  what  the  new  President 
would  do  to  avert  impending  danger  to  Harvard 
from  such  an  aroused  state  of  religious  feeling.  But 
President  Eliot  apparently  was  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  disturbed.  He  appears  to  have  accepted  as 
a  governing  principle  in  the  highest  teaching  of 
the  university  the  wise  saying  of  Jefferson,  "All 
error  may  be  safely  tolerated,  where  reason  is  left 
free  to  combat  it."  He  knew  what  Fiske  was  try- 
ing to  do  —  that  in  a  critical  way,  marked  by 
thorough  knowledge  and  great  fairness,  he  was  try- 
ing to  rid  the  true  Positive  Philosophy  of  science  of 
the  unphilosophical  vagaries  of  Comte  and  give 
it  an  interpretation  in  harmony  with  the  English 
school  of  scientific  thinkers  —  men  like  Darwin, 
Spencer,  Huxley,  Lyell,  Mill,  Bain,  etc.  There- 
fore, he  met  the  situation  with  perfect  composure, 
and  in  the  midst  of  the  hubbub,  he  took  occasion 
to  express  to  Fiske  his  approval  of  the  lectures 
and  requested  their  repetition  the  following  year, 
with  an  additional  course  devoted  more  particu- 
larly to  the  presentation  of  the  philosophy  of  Evo- 
lution from  the  English  viewpoint. 


John  Fiske 

Fiske  had  much  to  cheer  him,  from  his  outside 
audience,  against  this  wholly  unreasoning  theolog- 
ical rattle-t'-bang.  The  most  significant  of  all  the 
sympathetic  expressions  he  received  came  from 
the  everyday  readers  of  the  "World."  I  have  be- 
fore me  as  I  write  at  least  a  hundred  of  the  letters 
sent  to  the  editor  of  the  "World,"  and  sent  by 
him  to  Fiske;  and  they  are  indeed  a  revelation. 
They  are  from  professional  men,  business  men,  and 
working  men  throughout  the  country,  and  they 
testify,  by  the  varied  interests  they  represent,  to 
the  great  craving  that  exists  in  the  public  mind  for 
the  highest  philosophic  truth  when  presented  with 
fullness,  clearness,  and  honesty. 

When  the  lectures  were  over,  Fiske  was  tired. 
For  over  three  months  his  mind  had  been  at  ex- 
treme tension,  without  any  relaxation  whatever. 
He  had  in  eighty-two  days  written  six  hundred  and 
fifty-four  pages,  quarto  letter-paper  manuscript, 
hardly  looking  into  a  book  save  to  verify  quotation 
or  date.  He  writes  thus:  "I  feel  like  a  cat  in  a 
strange  garret  with  my  work  done.  I  can  actually 
take  a  nap  in  my  hammock  without  telling  Abby 
to  come  and  rout  me  out  in  half  an  hour." 

After  a  few  days  of  absolute  rest  he  went  to  visit 
his  mother  in  New  York.  There  he  met  many  of 
his  friends,  particularly  Professor  Youmans,  Henry 
Holt,  the  publisher,  Manton  Marble,  the  editor  of 
the  "World,"  Mr.  E.  L.  Godkin  and  John  Dennett, 
of  the  editorial  staff  of  the  "Nation,"  and  several 

362 


Effect  of  his  Lectures 

old  classmates.  He  was  everywhere  received  with 
marked  appreciation,  and  Dr.  William  A.  Ham- 
mond, late  Surgeon  General  of  the  United  States 
army,  and  an  eminent  alienist,  gave  a  dinner  in  his 
honor,  where  to  a  company  of  distinguished  scien- 
tists he  was  introduced  as  the  expounder  of  the 
new  philosophy  of  science. 

Thus  the  year  1869,  which  opened  with  Fiske's 
plea  for  a  new  administration  at  Harvard  that 
should  place  the  university  in  line  with  modern 
progress,  came  to  an  end,  having  witnessed  a  series 
of  changes  at  the  university  that  more  than  real- 
ized his  fondest  hopes  —  changes  which  had  called 
him  to  service  of  the  very  highest  character  in  be- 
half of  his  beloved  alma  mater,  the  performance  of 
which  had  placed  him  foremost  among  the  leaders 
of  liberal  thought  in  America. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

RENOMINATED  AS  LECTURER  AT  HARVARD  —  SIG- 
NIFICANT LETTER  FROM  SPENCER  —  TO  DEVOTE 
HIMSELF  TO  THE  PROPAGATION  OF  THE  DOC- 
TRINE OF  EVOLUTION  —  ACTING  PROFESSOR  OF 
HISTORY  AT  HARVARD  —  STUDIES  AND  LITERARY 
WORK 

1870 

EARLY  in  January,  1870,  President  Eliot  renomi- 
nated  Fiske  as  Lecturer  on  the  Positive  Philosophy 
for  the  academic  year  1870-71,  and  the  nomina- 
tion was  confirmed  by  the  Board  of  Overseers 
without  opposition.  This  fact,  in  connection  with 
the  wide  interest  aroused  by  his  first  course  of  lec- 
tures, led  to  a  significant  change  in  the  whole  tenor 
of  Fiske's  thought  —  gave  it,  in  fact,  quite  a  new 
direction  and  purpose.  We  have  seen  that  ever 
since  his  graduation  his  thought  had  been  concen- 
trated mainly  upon  philological  questions,  in  the 
endeavor  to  establish  in  the  genesis  and  develop- 
ment of  language  the  working  of  the  law  of  Evolu- 
tion —  a  purely  scholastic  piece  of  work. 

The  wide  discussion  which  followed  his  lectures, 
even  in  their  newspaper  form  of  publication,  and 
the  request  by  President  Eliot  for  their  repetition 
and  enlargement,  brought  to  his  consideration  a 
far  more  important  task  than  the  tracing-out  of 

364 


Renominated  as  Lecturer 

the  law  of  Evolution  in  any  single  department  of 
knowledge  —  a  no  less  important  task  than  the 
setting-forth  of  the  theory  of  Evolution  as  a  dy- 
namic principle  underlying  all  Cosmic  phenomena, 
with  its  theistic,  its  ethical,  and  its  religious  impli- 
cations. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  these  implications  had 
been  touched  upon  in  the  lectures  recently  given; 
but  as  the  lectures  were  prepared  without  any 
definite  purpose  beyond  combating  the  idea  that 
the  theory  of  Evolution  was  synonymous  with 
the  Positive  Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte,  Fiske 
could  not  think  of  letting  the  lectures  as  delivered 
stand  as  in  any  way  an  adequate  presentation  of 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution. 

The  response  to  his  lectures,  in  the  way  of  both 
condemnation  and  approval,  was  clear  evidence 
to  Fiske's  mind  that  a  presentation  of  the  new 
doctrine,  stripped  of  all  "Comtism"  and  with  its 
legitimate  philosophical  implications  clearly  set 
forth,  was  greatly  needed;  and  during  the  winter 
of  1870  we  find  him  giving  serious  thought  to  this 
important  undertaking.  He  weighed  the  whole 
matter  in  his  usual  methodical  way.  He  saw  that 
such  an  undertaking  would  necessitate  a  thorough 
review  of  the  sciences  —  particularly  the  historical 
and  sociological  sciences,  as  well  as  a  careful  review 
of  the  modern  schools  of  philosophy  in  the  light  of 
recent  advances  in  biology,  ethnology,  physiology, 
and  psychology.  He  also  saw,  as  conditioning  the 

365 


John  Fiske 

proper  execution  of  such  a  task,  the  necessity  of  a 
visit  to  London,  for  he  could  not  think  of  bringing 
out  a  work  on  such  a  subject  without  consulting 
with  Spencer  and  the  leading  English  scientists. 

While  considering  this  project,  Fiske  received 
the  following  significant  letter  from  Spencer:  — 

37  QUEEN'S  GARDENS. 

BAYSWATER,  LONDON,  W. 

February  2,  1870. 

My  dear  Fiske:  — 

Our  friend  Professor  Youmans  has  duly  for- 
warded me,  from  time  to  time,  copies  of  the  "New 
York  World/'  containing  the  reports  of  your  lec- 
tures. Though  my  state  of  brain  obliges  me  to  be 
very  sparing  in  the  amount  of  my  reading,  and 
though,  consequently,  I  have  not  read  them  all 
through,  yet  I  have  read  the  larger  parts  of  them; 
and  of  the  latter  ones  I  have  read  nearly  or  quite 
all.  This  fact  shows  that  they  have  produced  in 
me  an  increasing  interest.  Taken  together  they 
constitute  a  very  complete  and  well-arranged  sur- 
vey of  the  whole  subject,  which  can  scarcely  fail 
to  be  extremely  serviceable,  especially  when  it 
comes  to  be  repeated  in  an  improved  form,  as  I 
learn  from  Professor  Youmans  it  is  likely  to  be 
next  session. 

Into  the  latter  lectures  especially,  you  have  put 
an  amount  of  original  thought  which  gives  them 
an  independent  value.  Indeed,  in  several  of  the 
sociological  propositions  you  set  forth,  you  have 
to  some  extent  forestalled  me  in  the  elaboration 
of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  under  its  sociological 
aspects.  I  refer  to  the  dominance  you  have  given 

366 


Letter  from  Spencer 

to  the  influence  of  the  sociological  environment, 
and  to  the  conception  of  social  life  as  having  its 
action  adjusted  to  actions  in  the  environment, 
which  you  have  presented  in  a  more  distinct  way 
than  I  have  as  yet  had  the  opportunity  of  doing. 
When,  some  two  or  three  years  hence,  you  get  a 
copy*  of  the  first  volume  of  a  set  of  doubly-classi- 
fied Sociological  Facts,  which  has  been  in  course 
of  preparation  for  upwards  of  two  years  by  Mr. 
Duncan  (who  now  holds  the  pen  for  me),  you  will 
see  that  I  have  made  the  character  of  the  environ- 
ment, inorganic,  organic  and  sociological,  a  con- 
spicuous element  in  the  tabulated  account  of  each 
society,  with  the  intention  of  tracing  the  connex- 
ion between  it  and  the  social  structure. 

You  have  made  out  a  better  case  for  Comte  than 
any  of  his  disciples  have  done,  so  far  as  I  am  aware. 
Or,  perhaps,  it  seems  so  to  me  because  you  have 
not  joined  with  the  more  tenable  claim,  a  num- 
ber of  untenable  claims.  If  the  word  "Positive" 
could  be  dissociated  from  the  special  system  with 
which  he  associated  it,  and  could  be  connected  in 
the  general  mind  with  the  growing  body  of  scientific 
thought  to  which  he  applied  it,  I  should  have  no 
objection  to  adopt  it,  and  by  so  doing  accord  to 
him  due  honour  as  having  given  a  definite  and  co- 
herent form  to  that  which  the  cultivated  minds  of 
his  time  were  but  vaguely  conscious  of.  But  it 
seems  to  me  as  the  case  stands,  and  as  the  words 
are  interpreted  both  by  the  Comtists  and  by  the 
public,  the  amount  of  correct  apprehension  result- 
ing from  the  adoption  of  the  word  will  be  far 
outbalanced  by  the  amount  of  misapprehension 
produced. 

367 


John  Fiske 

In  so  far  as  I  am  myself  concerned,  I  still  hold 
that  the  application  of  the  word  to  me,  connotes  a 
far  greater  degree  of  kinship  between  Comte  and 
myself  than  really  exists.  I  say  this  not  simply  in 
virtue  of  a  reason  which  you  naturally  do  not  rec- 
ognize in  the  way  that  it  is  recognized  by  me.  I 
refer  to  the  fact  that  the  elements  of  my  general 
scheme  of  thought  which  you  have  brought  into 
prominence  as  akin  to  those  of  Comte  (such  as  the 
relativity  of  knowledge  and  the  deanthropomor- 
phization  of  men's  conceptions),  have  never  been 
elements  that  have  occupied  any  conspicuous  or 
distinctive  place  in  my  own  mind  —  they  have  been 
all  along  quite  secondary  to  the  grand  doctrine  of 
Evolution,  considered  as  an  interpretation  of  the  Cos- 
mos from  a  purely  scientific  or  physical  point  of 
view.  You  may  judge  of  the  proportional  impor- 
tance which  these  respective  elements  have  all 
along  had  in  my  mind,  when  I  tell  you  that  as  I 
originally  conceived  it,  "First  Principles"  was 
constituted  of  what  now  forms  its  second  part; 
that  along  with  the  succeeding  volumes,  it  was  in- 
tended to  be  a  detailed  working-out  through  all 
its  ramifications  of  that  conception  crudely  set 
forth  in  the  essay  on  "Progress,  its  Law  and  its 
Cause,"  and  that  I  subsequently  saw  the  need  for 
making  such  preliminary  explanation  as  is  now 
given  in  Part  I  (The  Unknowable)  simply  for 
the  purpose  of  guarding  myself  against  the  charges 
of  atheism  and  materialism,  which  I  foresaw  would 
most  likely  be  made  in  its  absence. 

If  you  deduct  the  doctrines  contained  in  this 
part,  and  the  doctrines  set  forth  in  the  reply  to 
M.  Laugel,  which  were  not  consciously  included 

368 


Letter  from  Spencer 

in  my  original  scheme  —  if  you  conceive  that  as 
I  originally  entertained  it,  and  still  consider  it, 
as  essentially  a  Cosmogony  that  admits  of  being 
worked  out  in  physical  terms,  without  necessarily 
entering  upon  any  metaphysical  questions,  and 
without  committing  myself  to  any  particular  form 
of  philosophy  commonly  so  called;  you  will  begin 
to  see  why  I  have  all  along  protested,  and  continue 
to  protest,  against  being  either  classed  with  Comte 
or  described  as  a  Positivist  in  the  wider  meaning 
of  that  word.  If  you  bear  in  mind  that  my  sole 
original  purpose  was  the  interpretation  of  all  con- 
crete phenomena  in  terms  of  the  redistribution  of 
Matter  and  Motion,  and  that  I  regard  all  other 
purposes  as  incidental  and  secondary;  and  if  you 
remember  that  a  cosmogony  as  so  conceived  has 
nothing  in  common  with  the  Positive  Philosophy, 
which  is  an  organon  of  the  sciences;  and  further, 
that  a  Cosmogony  as  so  conceived  is  not  involved 
in  that  general  Positivism  that  was  current  before 
Comte  or  has  been  current  since;  you  will  see  why 
I  regard  the  application  of  the  word  Positivist  to 
me  as  essentially  misleading.  The  general  doctrine 
of  universal  Evolution  as  a  necessary  consequence 
from  the  Persistence  of  Force,  is  not  contained  or 
implied  either  in  Comtism  or  in  Positivism  as  you 
define  it. 

I  have  gone  thus  at  length  into  the  matter, 
partly  because  I  want  you  to  understand  most 
fully  the  grounds  of  my  dissent,  which  you  prob- 
ably have  thought  inadequate;  and  partly  because 
it  might  be  that  in  preparing  your  course  for  a 
second  delivery,  the  explanation  I  have  given  may 
lead  to  some  modification  of  statement. 

369 


John  Fiske 

Hence  it  happens  that  when  certain  views  of 
mine  which  are  in  harmony  with  those  of  Comte, 
are  put  into  the  foreground  as  implying  a  funda- 
mental kinship  which  makes  the  same  title  appli- 
cable to  both,  the  inevitable  result  is  to  exhibit, 
as  all  essential,  these  quite  secondary  views,  which 
I  should  have  been  content  never  to  have  expressed 
at  all ;  and  by  so  doing  to  put  into  the  background 
the  one  cardinal  view  which  it  has  been,  and  still 
is  my  object  to  elaborate. 

Pray  do  not  suppose  that  in  saying  all  this,  I  am 
overlooking  the  sympathetic  appreciation  which  is 
everywhere  manifested  throughout  your  lectures, 
or  the  frequent  passages  in  which  you  have  seized 
the  occasion  to  draw  contrasts  and  to  point  out 
the  essential  differences.  But  I  have  gone  thus  at 
length  into  the  matter  with  the  view  of  showing 
you  a  ground  for  my  dissent  which  you  have  prob- 
ably never  perceived. 

I  was  glad  to  gather  from  Professor  Youmans 
that  your  lectures  were  being  favorably  received. 
I  should  hope  that  the  appreciation  has  continued 
to  grow  as  you  have  progressed  toward  the  end  of 
your  series.  Let  me  add  that  I  hope  you  have  not 
suffered  in  health  by  the  close  application  you  must 
have  entailed  on  yourself  in  preparing  so  elaborate 
a  course  of  lectures  in  so  short  a  time. 

I  am,  very  sincerely  yours, 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 

The  significance  of  this  letter  lies,  not  so  much 
in  what  it  reveals  of  Spencer's  thought  regarding 
Comte  and  the  Positive  Philosophy,  as  in  what  it 
reveals  of  Spencer's  attitude  at  the  time  toward 

370 


Letter  from  Spencer 

the  ultimate  questions  of  all  philosophy  with  their 
religious  implications.  This  letter  clearly  states 
that  he  regarded  these  ultimate  questions  as  of 
" incidental  and  secondary  importance";  that  in 
his  scheme  as  originally  planned  they  were  en- 
tirely ignored;  and  that  their  consideration  in  his 
"  First  Principles  "  was  an  afterthought,  introduced, 
not  as  necessary  to  his  argument,  but,  as  he  says, 
"simply  for  the  purpose  of  guarding  myself  against 
the  charges  of  atheism  and  materialism,  which  I 
foresaw  would  most  likely  be  made  in  their  ab- 


sence." 


This  letter  is  perhaps  the  clearest  evidence  we 
have  of  Spencer's  wholly  indifferent  attitude  to- 
ward the  Christian  religion,  and  especially  toward 
the  Christian  conceptions  of  God  and  of  the  broth- 
erhood of  man.  It  has  been  felt  by  many  that  the 
implications  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  as  pre- 
sented by  him  completely  sweep  away  the  funda- 
mentals of  the  Christian  religion  without  leaving 
in  their  stead  any  tangible  religious  truth  for  the 
mind  to  grasp;  that  while  destroying  that  which 
the  Christian  of  whatever  sect  has  for  ages  been 
taught  to  regard  as  the  highest  verity  —  a  dis- 
tinctly personal,  knowable  God  —  he  offers  in  its 
place  nothing  but  a  vague  intellectual  generality  or 
abstraction. 

This  letter,  coming  at  a  time  when  Fiske  was 
giving  serious  thought  to  devoting  himself  to  the 
exposition  of  the  new  doctrine,  produced  a  crys- 

37i 


John  Fiske 

tallizing  effect  in  his  mind.  He  felt  that  Spencer 
was  making  a  grave  mistake  in  minimizing  the 
religious  implications  of  his  great  doctrine.  In 
Fiske's  mind  these  implications,  with  their  bearing 
on  the  religious  faith  and  social  well-being  of  Chris- 
tendom were  by  no  means  unimportant  considera- 
tions, in  that,  rightly  interpreted,  they  enlarged 
the  Christian  conception  of  God  from  a  purely 
finite  anthropomorphic  conception  to  that  of  an 
Infinite  Eternal  Being  incapable  of  being  conceived 
by  the  human  mind ;  a  Being  of  whom  the  cosmos 
is  but  a  phenomenal  manifestation.  And  the  sub- 
jective implications  of  the  doctrine  were  no  less 
ennobling,  inasmuch  as  he  found  deeply  implanted 
in  the  human  consciousness  a  feeling  of  depend- 
ence upon,  and  aspiration  towards,  a  Being  or 
Power  transcending  finite  experience,  together 
with  certain  innate  ideas  of  ethical  conduct  in 
social  relations  —  the  whole  conditioning  man's 
fulness  of  life,  whereof  his  various  civilizations 
are  but  the  evidences  of  his  progressive  develop- 
ment. 

And  further,  these  philosophico-religious  impli- 
cations were  of  supreme  importance  in  Fiske's 
mind;  not  only  because  they  formed  the  highest 
aspect  of  Spencer's  profound  definition  of  life  — 
"the  continuous  adjustment  of  internal  relations 
to  external  relations";  but  also  because  they  were 
intellectually  constructive  in  their  nature,  and 
prepared  the  way  for  higher  and  purer  religious  and 

372 


Acting  Professor  of  History 

social  ideals  than  had  obtained  in  any  previous 
system  of  philosophy. 

While  his  mind  was  thus  seething  with  these  pro- 
found philosophico-religious  questions  Fiske  wrote 
two  articles,  one  entitled  "The  Jesus  of  History," 
and  the  other,  "The  Christ  of  Dogma/' *  These  two 
articles  were  a  clear,  impartial  summing-up  of  the 
results  of  New  Testament  criticism  at  the  time;  and 
were  intended  as  a  prelude  to  a  work  which  had 
been  near  his  heart  since  his  college  days,  a  work 
the  preparation  of  which  he  was  looking  forward  to 
amidst  all  his  subsequent  engagements  with  the 
deepest  interest;  a  work  to  which  he  proposed  to 
give  the  title  "Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  the  Founding 
of  Christianity. " 

In  this  winter  of  1870,  therefore,  Fiske  decided 
that  he  would  devote  himself  to  the  exposition  of 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution  with  special  regard  to  its 
religious  and  social  implications,  as  a  most  impor- 
tant task. 

And  yet  with  such  a  noble  purpose  he  did  not 
escape  the  relentless  heresy-hunter.  In  January 
of  this  year  Professor  Gurney,  the  University  Pro- 
fessor of  History,  was  elected  Dean  of  the  Faculty; 
and  President  Eliot  nominated  Fiske  to  occupy 
Professor  Gurney's  chair  for  the  spring  term,  as 
Acting  Professor  of  History.  It  was  a  good  test  of 
the  "liberality"  of  the  Board  of  Overseers  as  well 

1  These  two  essays  were  subsequently  published  in  his  volume  of 
essays  entitled  The  Unseen  World. 

373 


John  Fiske 

as  of  Fiske's  prospects  of  advancement  at  the 
college.  The  orthodox  element  in  the  Board  of 
Overseers,  chafing  under  the  steady  progress  of 
President  Eliot's  liberalizing  policy,  was  roused  to 
opposition,  and  a  vigorous  protest  to  Fiske's  con- 
firmation was  promptly  made.  Itwas  openly  charged 
that  Fiske  was  a  pronounced  atheist,  and  the  more 
dangerous  because  of  his  learning  and  ability.  It 
was  alleged  that  the  Board  had  gone  to  the  ex- 
treme limit  of  toleration  in  confirming  him  as  Lec- 
turer on  Philosophy :  to  go  further  and  sanction  his 
occupancy  of  the  chair  of  History,  even  tempora- 
rily, would  be  an  insult  to  all  the  traditions  of  the 
college.  The  opposition  was,  indeed,  bitter.  Sev- 
eral members  lost  their  temper,  and  vowed  they 
would  take  their  sons  away  from  the  college.  The 
confirmation  was  referred  to  a  special  committee, 
who  reported  in  favor  of  Fiske;  and  yet  it  required 
the  utmost  persistency  on  the  part  of  President 
Eliot,  supported  by  the  very  positive  action  of  such 
broad-minded  clergymen  as  James  Freeman  Clarke 
and  Edward  Everett  Hale,  —  members  of  the 
Board,  —  to  carry  the  nomination  through.  Fiske 
was  confirmed,  but  by  a  bare  majority.1 

1  The  following  letter  from  the  Reverend  James  Freeman  Clarke 
to  his  friend,  the  Reverend  William  R.  Alger,  is  of  interest  here:  — 

JAMAICA  PLAIN,  February  17,  1870. 
Dear  Alger:  — 

I  thank  you  for  your  note,  and  wish  I  had  received  it  before  the 
meeting  of  the  Board  of  Overseers.  I  decided  to  recommend  the 
Board  to  concur  in  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Fiske,  for  after  reading 
the  reports  of  his  lectures  in  the  "  New  York  World  "  I  saw  that  he 

374 


Acting  Professor  of  History 

In  the  teaching  of  history  Fiske  found  congenial 
labor.  His  specific  task  as  Acting  Professor  of 
History  was  the  interpretation  of  mediaeval  history 
to  the  senior  class,  and  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to 
him  to  come  in  contact  with  a  group  of  fresh  young 
minds  in  the  exposition  of  one  of  his  favorite  stud- 
ies. He  met  his  class  for  recitation  or  lecture  twice 
a  week,  and  the  class  appear  to  have  been  greatly 
pleased  with  their  instructor.  Here  are  a  few  ex- 
tracts from  the  letters :  — 

"May  26.  Gave  my  seniors  an  extempore  lec- 
ture yesterday  on  the  services  of  the  Catholic 
Church  during  the  Middle  Ages  and  they  seemed 
to  like  it  a  good  deal.  .  .  .  James  Freeman  Clarke 
witnessed  a  recitation  of  mine  last  week,  and  he 
seemed  to  like  the  way  I  did  it.  ...  To  instruct 
1 20  cheerful  and  gentlemanly  fellows  is  not  an 
unpleasant  task.  I  shall  be  rather  sorry  to  get 
through." 

"  June  8.  Had  my  last  recitation  Monday  and 
was  vociferously  clapped  and  hurrahed  by  the 
class  for  a  good-bye  and  am  invited  to  more 

was  no  more  of  an  atheist  than  Mansel  was  an  atheist.  I  do  not  in 
the  least  agree  with  his  philosophy,  nor  that  of  Herbert  Spencer. 
I  believe  we  can  know  God,  though  we  cannot  comprehend  Him ;  just 
as  we  know  a  great  many  other  facts  which  neither  the  understand- 
ing nor  the  imagination  can  grasp.  The  knowing,  however,  goes 
deeper  than  either.  But  if  a  man  does  not  call  himself  an  atheist,  I 
shall  not  call  him  so ;  because  from  my  premises  my  logic  would  lead 
me  to  that  conclusion.  So  I  decided  to  recommend  Mr.  Fiske,  which 
made  a  majority  of  the  Committee,  and  perhaps  a  majority  of  the 
Board  on  that  side.  I  shall  hope  some  day  to  know  Mr.  Fiske,  whose 
vigorous  and  clear  thoughts  are  very  interesting  to  me. 

Very  truly  yours, 

JAMES  FREEMAN  CLARKE. 

375 


John  Fiske 


'  spreads '  on  Class-day  than  a  man  can  go  to  in  a 
month. " 

It  was  hoped  by  Fiske's  friends  that  a  better 
understanding  of  his  philosophical  views,  and  the 
demonstration  of  his  rare  qualifications  for  histori- 
cal instruction  would  greatly  mitigate,  if  not  en- 
tirely overcome,  the  theologic  prejudice  against 
him  at  the  college,  so  that  he  might  at  least  be 
given  the  Assistant  Professorship  of  History.  But 
it  should  be  considered  that  the  controversy  over 
Darwinism  and  Evolution  was  at  its  height,  and 
that  Positivism,  Darwinism,  and  Evolution  were 
jumbled  together  by  the  theological  folk  as  the 
latest  form  of  scientific  infidelity,  which  not  only 
antagonized  common  sense,  but  also  insulted  a 
divinely  revealed  religion  by  presenting  man  with 
his  rational  mind  as  descended  (we  should  now  say 
ascended)  from  a  Simian  ancestry.  It  should  also 
be  considered  that  the  theologic  dogma  of  man's 
special  creation  by  Divine  fiat  was  affirmed  within 
the  college  as  an  ultimate  truth  of  science  by  Agas- 
siz,  with  all  the  weight  of  his  great  influence. 

Fiske's  pronounced  Darwinian  and  Evolution- 
ary views  had  the  effect,  therefore,  of  uniting  all 
these  influences  into  a  bitter  opposition  to  his 
holding  any  permanent  position  in  the  instruction 
at  the  college;  and  the  opposition  was  so  pro- 
nounced that  President  Eliot  did  not  again  nomi- 
nate him. 

Fiske's  labors  in  the  Department  of  History,  for 

376 


Studies  and  Literary  Work 

the  spring  term  of  1870  were  therefore  the  full  ex- 
tent of  his  instruction,  but  by  no  means  the  meas- 
ure of  his  work  at  Harvard. 

Notwithstanding  his  duties  as  Acting  Professor 
of  History  and  the  claims  of  philosophy  upon  his 
thought,  Fiske  did  not  at  any  time  neglect  his  clas- 
sical or  his  philologic  studies.  In  his  mind  these 
studies,  along  with  music,  appear  to  have  been 
regarded  as  diversions,  albeit  to  most  persons  the 
manner  in  which  the  diversions  were  pursued 
would  seem  a  serious  form  of  study.  This  personal 
characteristic,  however,  should  be  noted,  —  for  it 
appears  throughout  Fiske's  whole  intellectual  life, 
—  he  found  a  supreme  pleasure  in  whetting  his 
thought  upon  the  intellectual  masterpieces  of  the 
race,  and  tracing  in  them  the  development  of  lan- 
guage as  a  vehicle  of  thought  expression.  Of  his 
classical  reading  at  this  time  he  writes:  — 

"  I  am  getting  to  read  Greek  almost  like  English. 
I  began  the  '  Odyssey '  last  Sunday,  and  at  odd 
moments  have  read  two  thirds  of  it  in  five  days.  I 
believe  there  is  no  intellectual  pleasure  like  that 
derived  from  reading  the  Greek  poets.  Divine  old 
creatures." 

During  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1870,  Fiske's 
chief  activities  were  given  to  writing  a  series  of 
papers  on  popular  mythology  and  superstition  for 
the  "Atlantic  Monthly, "  some  book  reviews  for 
the  "New  York  World,"  and  to  studies  in  the 
history  of  music,  with  the  purpose  of  writing  an 

377 


John  Fiske 

article  on  the  philosophy  of  music.  This  article 
was  never  written ;  and  as  I  look  over  the  prepara- 
tion for  it,  —  bearing  in  mind  his  rare  musical 
gift,  —  I  cannot  but  express  a  regret  that  he 
never  carried  out  his  purpose.  He  greatly  enjoyed 
writing  the  mythological  articles,  and  they  were 
warmly  appreciated  by  Mr.  Howells,  then  editor 
of  the  "Atlantic,"  —  indeed,  the  letters  reveal  de- 
lightful neighborly  interviews  between  editor  and 
contributor  during  their  preparation. 

The  book  reviews  for  the  "New  York  World" 
comprised  such  works  as  Proctor's  "Other  Worlds 
than  Ours,"  Dalton's  "Hereditary  Genius,"  Hux- 
ley's "Lay  Sermons,"  Lankester's  "Comparative 
Longevity  in  Man  and  the  Lower  Animals,"  Dar- 
win's "Descent  of  Man,"  and  Gladstone's  "Ju- 
ventus  Mundi  —  The  Gods  and  Men  of  the  Heroic 
Age." 

These  reviews  were  not  mere  "book  notices." 
They  were  real  reviews,  and  in  the  choice  of  sub- 
jects and  method  of  treatment  there  is  shown  the 
steady  broadening  of  the  Evolutionary  doctrine  in 
Fiske's  mind,  with  its  application  to  a  wide  variety 
of  subjective  phenomena.  The  review  of  Glad- 
stone's "Juventus  Mundi"  was  in  Fiske's  best 
vein,  and  was  a  clear  and  scholarly  presentation  of 
the  fact  that  while  Gladstone,  as  a  statesman, 
might  notably  succeed  in  holding  a  "fretful  realm 
in  awe,"  as  a  classical  scholar,  in  the  philological 
and  historical  sense  of  the  term,  he  was  sadly  de- 

378 


Book  Reviews 

ficient.  Fiske  showed  the  fairness  and  fine  quality 
of  his  criticism  by  heartily  commending  Glad- 
stone's classical  enthusiasm  amid  his  great  public 
duties,  as  well  as  his  "  extensive  and  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  surface  of  the  '  Iliad*  and  'Odyssey/  " 

In  common  with  all  thoughtful  minds  Fiske  was 
profoundly  stirred  by  the  Franco- Prussian  War, 
then  raging,  upon  "which  he  comments  thus  to  his 
mother:  — 

"The  downfall  of  Napoleon  pleases  me  much. 
He  has  been  a  fearful  curse  to  France,  killing  her 
morally,  while  cheating  her  with  an  appearance 
of  material  prosperity.  I  hope  this  will  be  the  last 
of  the  Bonapartes.  The  Prussian  success  does  not 
surprise  me  unless  by  its  wonderful  rapidity  and 
completeness.  I  had  n't  the  slightest  expectation 
that  the  French  could  withstand  them.  To  under- 
stand how  the  best  class  of  Frenchmen  regard 
Bonapartism  you  should  read  Taxile  Delord's 
'Histoire  du  Second  Empire.'  ' 

On  November  16,  1870,  his  third  son,  Ralph 
Browning  Fiske,  was  born.  And  during  this  latter 
half  of  1870,  side  by  side  with  these  varied  inter- 
ests, his  second  course  of  Harvard  lectures,  as- 
signed to  the  spring  term  of  1871,  were  mulling  in 
his  mind. 


CHAPTER  XV 

SECOND  COURSE  OF  HARVARD  LECTURES  —  CORRE- 
SPONDENCE WITH  SPENCER  AND  DARWIN  —  LEC- 
TURES ON  EVOLUTION  —  PERSONA  NON  GRATA  AT 
LOWELL  INSTITUTE  —  ASSISTANT  LIBRARIAN  AT 
HARVARD — AGASSIZ  ARTICLE — SAILS  FOR  QUEENS- 
TOWN 

1871-1873 

THE  year  1871  opened  to  Fiske  with  a  task  before 
him  of  no  slight  nature  —  the  delivery  of  thirty- 
seven  lectures  on  Philosophy,  the  last  nineteen  of 
which  were  yet  to  be  prepared,  while  of  the  first 
eighteen  many  were  to  be  materially  revised.  The 
lectures  were  to  begin  February  15,  and  were  to 
continue  twice  a  week  until  the  1 5th  of  June.  The 
letters  during  January  reveal  Fiske  as  completely 
absorbed  in  thinking  out  the  nineteen  new  lec- 
tures preparatory  to  their  composition,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  note  what  the  "thinking-out"  proc- 
ess was.  It  consisted  of  getting  into  his  mind,  first 
of  all,  through  pure  mental  abstraction,  a  very 
definite  conception  of  his  object.  This  done,  the 
writing  out  of  his  thought  became  to  him  com- 
paratively an  easy  matter.  I  find  no  indication 
whatever  that  he  made  any  sketch  plan  of  the 
course,  or  that  he  even  made  any  notes  or  refer- 
ences to  authorities;  and  yet  the  lectures,  when 

380 


Second  Course  of  Lectures 

written  out,  fairly  bristled  with  apposite  quota- 
tions from  authorities  in  all  departments  of  knowl- 
edge. In  fact,  we  have  in  his  preparation  for,  and 
writing-out  of,  these  Evolutionary  lectures,  an- 
other illustration  not  only  of  his  method  of  working, 
but  also  of  the  thorough  command  of  his  wide  and 
varied  knowledge,  and  the  readiness  and  logical 
force  with  which  he  could  marshal  it  in  the  exposi- 
tion of  his  ideas. 

It  was  while  thinking  out  these  lectures  on  Evo- 
lution that  Fiske  clearly  saw  his  way  to  weave 
into  them,  as  a  permeating  woof  of  thought,  three 
considerations  of  the  very  highest  import  in  devel- 
oping the  doctrine  of  Evolution  into  a  philosophi- 
cal system.  These  were,  first,  the  complete  demon- 
stration of  the  fact  that  there  was  not,  nor  could 
there  be,  any  possible  congruity  between  the  Posi- 
tive Philosophy  of  Comte  and  the  philosophy  of 
Evolution.  Secondly,  the  positive,  teleological,  con- 
structive nature  of  a  philosophy  founded  on  Evo- 
lution, in  that  it  posits  an  Infinite  and  Eternal 
Being  ' '  everywhere  manifested  in  the  phenomenal 
activity  of  the  Universe,  alike  the  cause  of  all  and 
the  inscrutable  essence  of  all,  without  whom  the 
world  would  become  'like  the  shadow  of  a  vision/ 
and  thought  itself  would  vanish/'  Thirdly,  the 
identification  of  the  religious  implications  of  such 
a  philosophy  with  the  two  fundamental  elements 
of  the  Christian  religion  —  love  to  God  and  love 
to  man.  On  the  first  point  Spencer  and  Fiske  were 


John  Fiske 

in  accord:  the  second  and  third  points,  as  we  have 
seen,  Spencer  regarded  as  of  incidental  and  secon- 
dary importance. 

The  thirty-seven  lectures  were  delivered  pre- 
cisely as  planned  —  the  last  on  the  I4th  of  June. 
The  audience  was  small,  with  a  slightly  increased 
number  for  the  concluding  lectures  on  Evolution, 
notably  by  a  few  clergymen  and  students  from  the 
Divinity  School.  While  not  large,  the  audience  was 
a  thoughtful  and  responsive  one.  The  publication 
of  the  Evolutionary  lectures  in  the  "New  York 
World "  promptly  followed  their  delivery.  They 
were  widely  read;  but  their  publication  did  not 
cause  any  such  outburst  of  theological  denuncia- 
tion as  attended  the  first  series.  The  fact  was,  the 
theological  folk  saw  that  they  had  a  new  antago- 
nist to  face;  one  who  was  far  from  setting  forth 
any  Comtian  or  atheistical  doctrine;  one  who  was 
backed  by  the  highest  authorities  in  science;  one 
who  was  in  very  truth  presenting  a  higher,  a  purer 
form  of  theism  than  obtains  in  any  Christian  creed ; 
and  who  was  giving  to  existing  ethical  morality, 
on  the  basis  of  individual  and  social  conduct,  an 
origin  and  a  binding  force  far  transcending  any- 
thing found  in  the  assumptions  of  Christian  the- 
ology. 

Fiske  was,  of  course,  desirous  of  getting  Spen- 
cer's  opinions  on  several  points  in  the  lectures,  and 
especially  on  his  treatment  of  the  sociological  and 
religious  bearings  of  Evolution.  Accordingly,  he 

382 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

sent  copies  of  the  lectures  to  him,  and  from  the 
exchange  of  letters  that  took  place  the  following 
extracts  are  made. 

Under  date  of  September  29,  1871,  Fiske  writes 
Spencer:  — 

.  .  .  After  much  incubation  on  the  subject,  I  have 
come  to  think  that  you  are  right  in  refusing  to  ac- 
cept the  appellation  "Positivist"  in  any  sense  in 
which  it  is  now  possible  to  use  the  word ;  and  I  can 
see  many  points  of  difference  between  your  phil- 
osophy and  that  of  the  Littre  school,  which  es- 
caped my  notice  last  year,  and  which  are  quite 
fundamental,  albeit  not  very  conspicuous  on  a  su- 
perficial survey  of  the  case.  .  .  . 

As  the  clear  statement  of  the  points  of  agree- 
ment and  difference  between  your  philosophy  and 
Positivism  is  a  matter  of  much  importance,  I  hope 
that,  if  you  can  spare  the  time  to  look  over  the 
first  part  of  lecture  i8th,  you  will  do  so,  and  kindly 
communicate  to  me  any  criticisms  which  may  oc- 
cur to  you.  I  should  like  also  to  know  what  you 
think  of  the  term  "Cosmic  Philosophy1'  and  "Cos- 
mism."  In  the  iQth  lecture,  the  significance  of 
these  terms  is  still  further  illustrated. 

Besides  this  I  should  like  to  invite  your  atten- 
tion to  lecture  nth  on  "The  Evolution  of  Intelli- 
gence," and  especially  to  lecture  iyth  on  "Moral 
Progress."  In  the  latter  I  have  rudely  sketched  a 
theory  of  the  transition  from  animality  to  human- 
ity, from  gregariousness  to  sociality,  as  determined 
by  that  prolongation  of  infancy  which  is  itself 
due  to  the  increasing  complexity  of  intelligence.  I 
do  not  know  that  I  have  been  anticipated  in  this 

383 


John  Fiske 

theory,  and  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  valuable  con- 
tribution to  the  discussion  of  the  origin  of  society. 
It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to  know  what  you 
think  of  it.  ... 

.  .  .  Before  publication,  I  feel  it  very  desirable 
to  come  to  England,  and  talk  things  over  with  you 
and  with  Lewes,  Mill,  and  Huxley.  I  should  also 
like  to  secure  an  English  copyright  on  the  book. 
Always  desirous  of  seeing  you  more  than  any  one 
else  in  the  world,  I  now  feel  that  I  can  make  "busi- 
ness1' a  legitimate  excuse  for  leaving  home  for  a 
few  weeks.  If  I  can  possibly  bring  it  about,  I  shall 
sail  for  England  early  in  the  spring. 

In  reply  to  your  kind  inquiries  after  my  health 
and  private  circumstances,  I  may  say,  figuratively, 
that  to  the  strength  of  a  gorilla  and  the  appetite 
of  a  wolf,  I  add  the  capacity  for  sleep  of  a  Rip  van 
Winkle.  Having  a  wife  and  little  daughter  and 
three  little  sons  to  take  care  of,  and  having  a  strong 
"  gout  du  bien-etre"  not  to  call  it  a  taste  for  luxury,  I 
may  find  it  rather  hard  to  get  on.  Still,  I  find  that 
literary  work  pays  better  than  I  ever  expected  it 
would.  .This  is  partly  due  to  the  generosity  of  Mr. 
Man  ton  Marble,  proprietor  of  the  "New  York 
World, "  who  has  always  given  me  unstinted  space 
in  his  columns,  and  paid  me  at  high  rates. 

Rumour  tells  me  that  you  are  in  better  health 
than  usual,  and  ready  to  proceed  rapidly  with  your 
work.  I  am  getting  very  impatient  to  see  the  "  So- 
ciology, "  and  the  rapid  appearance  of  the  last  four 
numbers  of  the  "Psychology"  I  have  hailed  with 
unseemly  and  barbaric  laughs  of  exultation.  One 
of  my  dearest  hopes  is  to  see  you  finish  the  whole 
work,  and  then  go  back  and  insert  the  unwritten 

384 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

portion  on  inorganic  phenomena;  and  one  of  my 
most  earnest  labours  will  be  to  do  what  little  I  can 
in  helping  to  secure  for  the  results  of  your  profound 
studies,  the  general  recognition  which  they  deserve, 
and  are  surely  destined  to  obtain.1  .  .  . 

Hoping  before  long  to  meet  you,  I  am 
Yours  faithfully, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

The  particular  lectures  in  regard  to  which  Fiske 
especially  desired  Spencer's  criticism  were  those 
dealing  with  the  evolution  of  human  intelligence 
and  the  development  of  theism  and  of  moral  and 
religious  ideals  through  the  working  of  the  un- 
known evolutionary  principle  of  life  —  a  principle 
which  had  been  defined  by  Spencer  as  "the  con- 
tinuous adjustment  of  internal  relations  to  exter- 
nal relations."  In  point  of  fact,  Fiske's  request  was 
a  courteous  way  of  asking  Spencer  to  define  him- 
self, on  the  subjects  of  theism  and  religion,  more 
completely  than  he  had  yet  done  in  the  setting- 
forth  of  his  philosophy.  j 

Under  date  of  November  27,  1871,  Spencer  re- 
plied :  — 

My  dear  Mr.  Fiske :  — 

The  packet  of  lectures  safely  reached  me  along 
with  your  letter.  Thank  you  very  much  for  them. 
Already  I  had  read  a  good  number  of  them  with 

1  In  Fiske's  original  draft  of  this  letter  he  wrote,  and  then  can- 
celled, the  following:  — 

11 1  trust  you  will  not  tyrannize  over  later  generations  as  Aristotle 
did ;  but  I  am  sure  they  will  rate  you  as  high  as  he  was  rated  in  the 
Middle  Ages." 

385 


John  Fiske 

much  interest  (some  of  them  brought  by  Youmans , 
and  others  sent  to  him),  but  several  were  missing, 
and  I  am  glad  to  have  a  tolerably  complete  series. 
They  cannot  fail  to  be  of  immense  service  by  pre- 
senting the  general  view  in  a  comparatively  mod- 
erate space.  Beyond  the  advantage  of  brevity, 
however,  they  have  the  great  advantage  of  being 
a  coherent  re-presentation  of  the  doctrine  as  it 
appears  to  another  mind,  a  re-presentation  which 
cannot  fail  to  be  helpful  to  many.  To  the  great 
value  which  your  lectures  thus  possess  in  their  ex- 
pository character,  has  to  be  added  the  farther 
value  they  derive  from  the  original  thought  run- 
ning through  them,  which  here  and  there  eluci- 
dates and  carries  out  the  general  doctrine  to  great 
advantage. 

It  is  satisfactory  to  me  to  hear  that  the  course 
is  likely  to  be  repeated  in  Boston  this  winter,  and 
that  you  contemplate  subsequently  embodying  it 
in  a  volume.  Good  arrangements  can  doubtless 
be  made  for  you  here,  under  the  general  system 
of  international  publication  which  Youmans  has 
been  doing  so  much  to  inaugurate.  It  will  give  me 
great  pleasure  to  see  you  in  England,  and  to  do 
what  I  can  toward  furthering  your  aims.  Mill, 
you  will  not,  I  fear,  be  able  to  see.  He  is  now  at 
Avignon  and  intends,  I  am  told,  to  spend  most  of 
his  time  there  henceforth ;  coming  to  England  only 
for  a  few  weeks,  probably  in  the  summer.  But  with 
the  others  you  name,  I  shall  have  pleasure  in  bring- 
ing you  in  contact. 

...  I  have  not  had  time  to  read,  or  re-read  those 
particular  lectures,  or  parts  of  lectures  to  which  you 
refer,  for  I  have  been  recently  pressed  in  finishing 

386 


Correspondence  with  Spencer 

some  work  that  had  to  be  done  to  date.  Either 
soon,  or  else  before  you  come,  I  hope  to  prepare 
myself  to  say  something  about  them. 

Meanwhile,  respecting  one  of  the  questions  you 
raise,  —  that  of  the  title,  —  I  may  as  well  say 
what  has  occurred  to  me.  To  put  my  view  in  its 
most  general  form,  I  should  say  that  a  system  of 
philosophy,  if  it  is  to  have  a  distinctive  name, 
should  be  named,  from  its  method,  not  from  its 
subject-matter.  Whether  avowedly  recognized  as 
such  or  not,  the  subject-matter  of  philosophy  is 
the  same  in  all  cases.  If  it  is  consistently  inter- 
preted as  that  order  of  science  which  unifies  the 
sciences  (and  it  has  from  the  beginning  had  uncon- 
sciously, if  not  consciously,  this  character),  then 
its  subject-matter  has  all  along  been  essentially 
the  same.  The  speculations  of  the  Greeks  had  ref- 
erence to  the  genesis  of  the  cosmos,  just  as  clearly 
as  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  has.  And  if  so,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  title  "Cosmic'*  is  not  distinc- 
tive. It  applies  to  the  system  of  Hegel,  of  Oken, 
and  of  all  who  have  propounded  cosmogonies.  The 
word  expresses  simply  the  extent  of  the  theory,  and 
may  be  fairly  applied  to  every  theory  which  pro- 
poses to  explain  all  the  arrangement  of  things  — 
even  though  it  be  the  theory  of  final  causes.  Hav- 
ing regard  to  this  requirement,  that  the  title  for  a 
Philosophy  shall  refer  not  to  its  subject-matter, 
which  it  must  have  in  common  with  other  Philos- 
ophy, but  to  its  method,  in  which  it  may  more 
or  less  differ  from  them;  I  continue  to  prefer  the 
title  "  Synthetic  Philosophy." 

This  and  various  other  questions,  however,  we 
can  discuss  at  length,  when  you  come  to  England. 

387 


John  Fiske 

Respecting  the  final  revision  of  your  lectures  be- 
fore publication,  I  would  suggest  that  you  should, 
if  you  can,  obtain  the  criticisms  of  experts  on  the 
respective  divisions  of  science  dealt  with.  Here 
and  there  there  are  statements  and  hypotheses 
which  seem  to  me  open  to  criticism;  while  they 
are  not  essential  to  the  argument  it  is  very  impor- 
tant to  avoid  giving  handles  to  antagonists.  In  the 
popular  mind,  a  valid  objection  to  some  quite  un- 
important detail  of  an  argument,  is  very  often 
taken  for  a  disproof  of  the  argument  itself. 

I  am  glad  to  have  good  accounts  of  your  health 
and  vigour.  There  is  plenty  of  work  to  be  done, 
and  it  is  satisfactory  to  hear  of  one  otherwise  able 
to  do  it,  who  is  at  the  same  time  physically  strong 
enough. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 

While  the  general  tenor  of  this  letter  gave  Fiske 
great  encouragement,  it  left  a  tinge  of  disappoint- 
ment in  his  mind,  in  that  Spencer  had  evaded  his 
request,  for  particular  criticism  on  the  lectures 
dealing  with  the  application  of  the  law  of  Evolu- 
tion to  the  development  of  human  intelligence,  to 
theistic,  to  moral,  and  to  religious  ideals.  He  was 
further  disturbed  by  Spencer's  strong  insistence 
upon  " Synthetic  Philosophy"  as  a  suitable  title 
for  a  philosophy  based  on  Evolution  —  a  title 
which  seemed  to  Fiske  neither  generic  nor  in  any 
way  distinctive. 

Two  years  later,  we  shall  see  these  points  again 
brought  under  consideration,  when  Fiske,  in  per- 

388 


Correspondence  with  Darwin 

sonal  conference  with  Spencer  in  London,  was  re- 
vising his  lectures  for  publication. 

Fiske  also  sent  copies  of  the  lectures  to  Darwin, 
and  the  following  correspondence  ensued.  As  we 
have  here  two  self-revealing  letters:  the  one  from 
a  young  man  with  rare  mental  endowments,  seek- 
ing with  the  utmost  sincerity  of  purpose  the  high- 
est truths  in  science  and  philosophy;  the  other  from 
one  of  the  world's  greatest  scientists,  wherein  we 
see  a  mind  serenely  poised  after  a  contribution  to 
human  knowledge  of  the  very  highest  import,  and 
ready  generously  to  welcome  fresh  thought  from 
whatever  source,  I  give  the  letters  entire:  — 

Fiske  to  Darwin 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY, 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  October  23,  1871. 

Mr.  Charles  Darwin:  — 

My  dear  Sir,  —  Since  it  came  in  my  way,  in  dis- 
charge of  my  duties  as  lecturer  at  the  university, 
to  notice  your  discoveries  in  so  far  as  they  bear 
upon  the  organization  of  scientific  truths  into  a 
coherent  body  of  philosophy,  it  has  been  my  in- 
tention to  write  and  seek  the  honour  of  your  ac- 
quaintance, forwarding  to  you,  as  a  sort  of  letter 
of  introduction  the  reports  of  my  lectures. 

A  few  days  ago  I  met  your  two  sons  at  dinner 
(who  afterwards  kindly  called  at  my  house)  and  I 
gave  to  Mr.  F.  Darwin  the  reports  of  a  few  of  my 
lectures  to  transmit  to  you.  I  cannot  however  re- 
sist the  temptation  to  write  to  you,  and  tell  you 
directly  how  dear  to  me  is  your  name  for  the  mag- 
nificent discovery  with  which  you  have  enriched 

389 


John  Fiske 

human  knowledge,  winning  for  yourself  a  perma- 
nent place  beside  Galileo  and  Newton. 

When  your  " Origin  of  Species"  was  first  pub- 
lished, I  \vas  a  boy  of  seventeen;  but  I  had  just 
read  Agassiz's  "Essay  on  Classification"  with 
deep  dissatisfaction  at  its  pseudo-Platonic  attempt 
to  make  metaphysical  abstractions  do  the  work 
of  physical  forces;  and  I  hailed  your  book  with 
exultation,  reading  and  re-reading  it  till  I  almost 
knew  it  by  heart.  Since  then  "Darwinism"  has 
formed  one  of  the  pivots  about  which  my  thought 
has  turned.  And  though  I  am  no  naturalist,  and 
cannot  claim  any  ability  to  support  your  discov- 
ery by  original  observations  of  my  own,  yet  I  have 
striven,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  to  point  out  the 
strong  points  of  your  theory  of  natural  selection, 
and  to  help  win  for  it  acceptance  on  philosophic 
grounds. 

There  is  one  place  in  which  it  seems  to  me  that 
I  have  thrown  out  an  original  suggestion,  which 
may  prove  to  be  of  some  value  in  connection  with 
the  general  theory  of  man's  descent  from  an  ape- 
like ancestor.  In  the  lecture  on  "Moral  Progress" 
(which  along  with  others  your  son  will  hand  you) 
I  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  transition 
from  Animality  (or  bestiality,  stripping  the  word 
from  its  bad  connotations),  to  humanity,  must 
have  been  mainly  determined  by  the  prolongation 
of  infancy  or  immaturity,  which  is  consequent 
upon  a  high  development  of  intelligence,  and  which 
must  have  necessitated  the  gradual  grouping  to- 
gether of  pithecoid  men  into  more  or  less  defined 
families. 

I  will  not  try  to  state  the  hypothesis  here,  as  you 


390 


CHARLES   DARWIN 


Correspondence  with  Darwin 

will  get  a  clearer  statement  of  it  in  the  lecture. 
I  should  esteem  it  a  great  favour  if  you  would, 
after  looking  at  the  lecture,  tell  me  what  you  think 
of  the  hypothesis.  It  seems  to  me  quite  full  of 
significance. 

I  am  on  the  point  of  giving  a  few  popular  lec- 
tures in  illustration  and  defence  of  your  views. 
You  will  see  from  the  papers,  which  I  have  sent 
you,  that  I  am  an  earnest  admirer  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  —  a  thinker  to  whom  I  am  more  indebted 
than  I  can  possibly  tell ;  and  who  has  been  so  kind  as 
to  give  me  some  of  his  personal  advice  and  assist- 
ance by  way  of  letters  during  the  past  seven  years. 
I  hope  before  next  summer  to  visit  England,  and 
I  count  much  upon  seeing  you,  as  well  as  Mr. 
Spencer  and  Mr.  Huxley.  Meanwhile  and  always, 
believe  me,  dear  sir, 

Yours  with  deep  respect, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

Charles  Darwin  to  Fiske 

DOWN  BERKENHAM,  KENT, 
November  9,  1871. 

My  dear  Sir:  — 

I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you  for  having  sent  me, 
through  my  son,  your  lectures;  and  for  the  very 
honourable  manner  in  which  you  allude  to  my  works. 
The  lectures  seem  to  me  to  be  written  with  much 
force,  clearness,  and  originality.  You  show  also  an 
extraordinary  amount  of  knowledge  of  all  that  has 
been  published  on  the  subject.  The  type  in  many 
parts  is  so  small  that,  except  to  young  eyes,  it  is 
very  difficult  to  read.  Therefore  I  wish  you  would 
reflect  on  their  separate  publication;  though  so 

39i 


John  Fiske 

much  has  been  published  on  the  subject  that  the 
public  may  possibly  have  had  enough. 

I  hope  this  may  be  your  intention;  for  I  do  not 
think  I  have  ever  seen  the  general  argument  more 
forcibly  put  so  as  to  convert  unbelievers. 

It  has  surprised  and  pleased  me  to  see  that  you 
and  others  have  detected  the  falseness  of  much  of 
Mr.  Mivart's  reasoning.  I  wish  I  had  read  your 
lectures  a  month  or  two  ago,  as  I  have  been  pre- 
paring a  new  edition  of  the  "Origin,"  in  which  I 
answer  some  special  points;  and  I  believe  I  should 
have  found  your  lectures  useful;  but  my  manu- 
script is  now  in  the  printer's  hands,  and  I  have  not 
strength  or  time  to  make  any  more  additions. 

With  my  thanks  and  good  wishes, 

I  remain,  my  dear  sir, 
Yours  sincerely, 

CHARLES  DARWIN. 

P.S.  By  an  odd  coincidence  since  the  above  was 
written  I  have  received  your  very  obliging  letter 
of  October  23d.  I  did  notice  the  point  to  which 
you  refer,  and  will  hereafter  reflect  more  over  it. 
I  was  indeed  on  the  point  of  putting  in  a  sentence 
to  somewhat  the  same  effect,  in  the  new  edition  of 
the  " Origin"  in  relation  to  the  query  —  why  have 
not  apes  advanced  in  intellect  as  well  as  man?  but 
I  omitted  it  on  account  of  the  asserted  prolonged 
infancy  of  orang.  I  am  also  a  little  doubtful  about 
the  distinction  between  gregariousness  and  hered- 
ity. Memo,  case  of  baboons. 

When  I  have  time  and  thought,  I  will  send  you 
description. 

When  you  come  to  England,  I  shall  have  much 
pleasure  in  making  your  acquaintance;  but  my 

392 


Lectures  on  Evolution 

health  is  habitually  so  weak,  that  I  have  very  small 
power  of  conversing  with  my  friends  as  much  as 
I  wish. 

Let  me  again  thank  you  for  your  letter.  To  be- 
lieve that  I  have  at  all  influenced  the  minds  of  able 
men  is  the  greatest  satisfaction  which  I  am  capable 
of  receiving. 

CH.  DARWIN. 

These  letters  of  Spencer  and  Darwin  confirmed 
in  Fiske's  mind  the  wisdom  of  his  purpose  to  de- 
vote himself  to  the  exposition  of  the  philosophy  of 
Evolution,  and  he  now  sought  engagements  for  a 
course  of  lectures  presenting  Evolution  as  a  philo- 
sophic system,  or  for  single  lectures  presenting 
special  points  in  the  system,  such  as  "The  Mean- 
ing of  Evolution,'*  "Evolution  and  Comtism," 
"The  Nebular  Hypo  thesis, "  "The  Composition  of 
Mind,"  "Darwinism,"  "Science  and  Religion,"  etc. 

During  the  winter  of  1872  he  delivered  the  com- 
plete course  of  lectures  in  Boston,  and  he  had  rea- 
son to  be  well  pleased  with  the  manner  in  which 
they  were  received  by  a  popular  audience.  The 
audience  was  sympathetic  from  the  beginning,  and 
two  of  the  lectures  he  repeated  by  request.  At 
the  concluding  lecture,  the  expressions  of  grati- 
tude for  the  new  light  he  had  thrown  on  the  deep- 
est of  all  problems  —  man's  relations  to  the  In- 
finite —  were  so  marked  that  Fiske  was  greatly 
affected  thereby.  Writing  to  his  mother,  under 
date  of  March  31,  1872,  he  says:  — _ 

393 


John  Fiske 

11  My  concluding  lecture  —  on  the  '  Critical  Atti- 
tude of  Philosophy  toward  Christianity,'  in  which, 
as  the  consummation  of  my  long  course,  I  throw  a 
blaze  of  new  light  upon  the  complete  harmony  be- 
tween Christianity  and  the  deepest  scientific  phil- 
osophy, was  given  Friday  noon,  and  was  received 
with  immense  applause.  You  ought  to  have  been 
there.  I  suppose  there  was  some  eloquence  as  well 
as  logic  in  it,  for  many  of  the  ladies  in  the  audi- 
ence were  moved  to  tears.  Many  were  the  expres- 
sions almost  of  affection  which  I  got  afterwards, 
and  tokens  thereof  in  the  shape  of  invitations  to  all 
sorts  of  things,  concert  tickets,  etc.,  etc.  Abby  and 
I  held  a  regular  levee  for  about  an  hour.  Several 
people  told  me  that  their  lives  would  be  brighter 
ever  after  hearing  these  lectures;  that  they  had 
never  known  any  pleasure  like  it,  etc.,  etc.;  and  as 
these  things  were  said  with  moistened  eyes,  I  have 
no  doubt  they  came  from  the  heart.  To  me  it  is  a 
delight  to  have  made  so  many  friends.  .  .  .  The 
best  effect  of  it  will  be  to  destroy  the  absurd  theo- 
logical prejudice  which  has  hitherto  worked  against 
me,  chiefly  with  those  people  who  have  n't  had  the 
remotest  idea  of  what  my  views  are. 

"I  have  long  known  that  my  views  needed  only 
to  be  known  to  be  sympathized  with  by  the  most 
truly  religious  part  of  the  community  of  whatever 
sect;  that  when  thoroughly  stated  and  understood, 
they  disarm  opposition,  and  leave  no  ground  for 
dissension  anywhere  —  and  this  winter's  experi- 
ment has  proved  that  I  was  right." 

And  yet,  at  this  very  time,  while  preaching  this 
profoundly  religious  philosophy,  and  holding  to  a 

394 


Lectures  on  Evolution 

faith  in  the  fair-mindedness  of  people  that  they 
would  understand  the  highest  philosophic  and  re- 
ligious truth  when  properly  presented,  Fiske  could 
not,  because  of  his  heretical  opinions,  speak  before 
the  Lowell  Institute  of  Boston,  an  institution  es- 
pecially established  for  the  dissemination  of  knowl- 
edge among  the  people. 

It  appears  that  President  Eliot  sought  to  have 
Fiske  invited  to  give  his  course  of  lectures  before 
this  institution.  He  was  not  successful;  and  he 
gives  the  result  of  his  effort  in  the  following  letter 
to  Fiske :  — 

HARVARD  COLLEGE, 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS., 

27  March,  1872. 

Dear  Mr.  Fiske:  — 

I  have  done  my  best  with  Mr.  Lowell  about  a 
course  of  lectures  for  you,  and  on  some  accounts 
he  would  like  to  give  you  one.  But  public  atten- 
tion has  been  called  to  your  religious  opinions  — - 
through  no  fault  of  your  own  —  and  Mr.  Lowell 
does  not  feel  able  to  disregard  in  such  a  case  the 
following  expression  of  the  wishes  of  the  founder  of. 
the  Lowell  Institute:  — 

"As  infidel  opinions  appear  to  me  injurious  to 
society,  and  easily  insinuate  themselves  into  a  man's 
dissertations  on  any  subject,  however  remote  it 
may  be  from  the  subject  of  religion,  no  man  ought 
to  be  appointed  a  lecturer,  who  is  not  willing  to 
declare  his  belief  in  the  Divine  revelation,  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments,  leaving  the  interpreta- 
tion thereof  to  his  own  conscience." 

395 


John  Fiske 

I  could  not  declare  my  belief  in  the  "Divine 
revelation"  of  the  Old  Testament  and  I  don't  be- 
lieve you  can;  that  is,  in  the  accepted  sense  of  the 
words  "Divine  revelation." 

I  am  very  sorry  for  this  obstacle  to  your  prog- 
ress; but  I  beg  you  not  to  be  discouraged,  and  not 
to  abandon  faith  in  the  force  of  scholarship,  and 
sincerity,  and  in  the  real  and  ultimate  liberality 
of  this  community. 

Very  truly  yours, 

CHARLES  W.  ELIOT. 
To  JOHN  FISKE,  Esqr. 

In  spite,  however,  of  theological  opposition, 
Fiske's  reputation  for  fine  scholarship,  for  fair- 
mindedness  in  the  discussion  of  controverted  points 
of  doctrine,  and  for  rare  powers  of  philosophic  ex- 
position, steadily  broadened.  He  was  fortunate 
in  his  friendships.  In  New  York  his  friends,  Pro- 
fessor Youmans,  Henry  Holt,  John  R.  Dennett, 
and  W.  P.  Garrison  (of  the  "Nation"),  Homer 
Martin  (the  artist),  Benjamin  Frothingham  (his 
classmate),  and  a  few  others,  were  active  in  ra- 
diating, as  it  were,  from  the  Century  Club — at 
that  time  the  centre  of  literary,  scientific,  and  ar- 
tistic thought  in  New  York  —  influences  in  his  fa- 
vor, as  the  chief  exponent  in  America  of  the  new 
philosophy  of  Evolution.  The  result  was  that  soon 
after  the  close  of  his  lectures  in  Boston,  he  was 
called  to  give  four  lectures  in  New  York  —  one  at 
the  Century  Club  on  the  "Composition  of  Mind," 
and  three  on  "Evolution"  at  the  Cooper  Union. 

396 


Growing  Reputation 

The  result  was  all  that  his  friends  could  desire  — 
to  hear  him  was,  in  the  court  of  reason,  to  be  per- 
suaded in  behalf  of  his  doctrine.  And  this,  with  the 
profound  discussion  over  the  origin  of  man  opened 
up  by  Darwinism,  drew  to  the  consideration  of 
his  doctrine  an  ever-widening  circle  of  thoughtful 
minds. 

Personal  honors  were  not  wanting.  While  in 
New  York  William  Appleton,  the  publisher,  gave 
a  " Cosmos  Dinner"  in  his  honor,  and  among  the 
distinguished  guests  were  William  Cullen  Bryant, 
Abram  S.  Hewitt,  Dr.  William  A.  Hammond, 
George  Ripley  (literary  editor  of  the  "New  York 
Tribune"),  Professor  Youmans,  and  Dr.  Austin 
Flint. 

John  Hay,  then  one  of  the  editors  of  the  "New 
York  Tribune,"  also  gave  a  dinner  in  his  honor. 

Meanwhile,  the  influence  of  Fiske's  thought,  un- 
known to  himself,  was  spreading  in  the  West,  and 
he  received  a  call  from  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin, 
for  the  delivery  of  the  complete  course  of  Evolu- 
tionary lectures  with  a  guaranty  of  at  least  five 
hundred  dollars  for  the  course.  The  call  was  ac- 
cepted for  the  following  September,  and  its  fulfil- 
ment became  (as  we  shall  soon  see)  a  memorable 
experience  in  his  life. 

At  this  time  Fiske  had  under  consideration  an 
appointment  as  non-resident  Professor  of  History 
at  Cornell  University.  President  White  of  Cornell 
was  in  full  sympathy  with  Fiske's  philosophical 

397 


John  Fiske 

views,  and  he  very  much  desired  to  have  the  new 
university  rising  at  Ithaca,  New  York,  give  recog- 
nition to  the  new  school  of  scientific  philosophy. 
Very  properly,  therefore,  he  turned  to  Fiske  for 
assistance.  Why  Fiske  did  not  accept  an  appoint- 
ment which  at  the  time  would  have  been  a  con- 
spicuous honor,  was  owing  to  a  call  to  service  in 
behalf  of  his  own  alma  mater.  1 

k  This  call  is  set  forth  in  the  following  letters  to 
Fiske  from  Professor  Gurney  and  President  Eliot. 

Professor  Gurney  to  Fiske 

^CAMBRIDGE,  i8th  May,  1872. 
Dear  John : — 

I  proposed  to  Eliot,  some  time  ago,  that  you 
should  be  offered  Abbot's  place  in  the  Library.1 
I  am  glad  to  say  that  he  has  taken  to  the  idea  more 
and  more,  and  I  dare  say,  has  communicated  with 
you. 

As  I  had  thought  the  matter  over  with  care 
before  proposing  it  to  him,  I  hope  I  shall  have 
a  chance  of  talking  about  it  with  you,  before  you 
give  an  answer  at  any  rate. 

Very  truly  yours, 

E.  W.  GURNEY. 

This  note  was  immediately  followed  by  the  of- 
fer to  Fiske,  by  President  Eliot,  of  the  position  of 
Assistant  Librarian  at  Harvard  College.  The  offer 
was  cordially  accepted,  and  in  a  few  days  Fiske 

1  Ezra  Abbot  was  Assistant  Librarian;  but  owing  to  the  infirmi- 
ties of  the  Librarian,  John  Langdon  Sibley,  Mr.  Abbot  had  for  some 
time  been  the  Acting  Librarian.  He  had  tendered  his  resignation.  . 

398 


Assistant  Librarian  at  Harvard 

had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  the  following  letter 
from  President  Eliot :  — 

HARVARD  COLLEGE, 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS., 

29  May,  1872. 
JOHN  FISKE,  Esqr . 
Dear  Mr.  Fiske :  — 

You  were  duly  appointed  Asst.  Librarian  for  the 
ensuing  academic  year  by  the  Corporation  on  Mon- 
day last  with  a  salary  for  the  year  of  $2500. 

This  appointment  was  to-day  concurred  in  by 
the  Board  of  Overseers,  with  one  dissenting  voice. 
You  had  better  have  a  talk  with  Mr.  Abbot  about 
getting  instructed  in  the  work,  after  you  have  paid 
your  respects  to  your  official  superior,  Mr.  Sibley. 
Very  truly  yours, 

CHARLES  W.  ELIOT. 

This  unsolicited  appointment  came  to  Fiske  as 
a  most  gratifying  surprise.  And  it  came  at  a  time 
of  special  need.  While  his  philosophical  lectures 
had  greatly  extended  his  reputation,  they  had 
taken  a  great  deal  of  time  from  his  productive  liter- 
ary work  and  this  had  brought  him  but  very  slight 
return.  He  was  therefore  somewhat  exercised  over 
his  financial  future.  His  new  appointment  gave  an 
assurance  of  a  modest  and  steady  income,  although 
it  brought  a  round  of  exacting  duties  which  left 
but  little  time  for  literary  and  philosophical  writ- 
ing, or  for  lecturing.  It  was  the  hope  of  his  friends 
that  this  appointment  would  pave  the  way  for  his 
advancement  to  a  professorship  at  the  college. 

399 


John  Fiske 

Fiske's  work  at  the  Harvard  Library  did  not  be- 
gin until  October.  During  the  summer  he  was  busy 
getting  settled  in  a  new  home  at  No.  4  Berkeley 
Street,  Cambridge,  and  in  finishing  various  liter- 
ary matters, — among  them  getting  his  "Atlantic 
Monthly'1  mythological  papers  ready  for  publi- 
cation in  book  form  under  the  title  of  "Myths 
and  Myth-Makers/'  —  and  also  in  making  himself 
acquainted  with  his  duties  as  librarian. 

On  July  22,  1872,  his  second  daughter,  Ethel, 
was  born. 

The  month  of  September  was  given  to  the  de- 
livery of  his  Evolutionary  lectures  in  Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin.  I  regret  that  I  can  make  room  for  but 
a  few  extracts  from  the  very  deeply  interesting  let- 
ters to  Mrs.  Fiske,  in  which  Fiske  so  graphically 
sets  forth  his  experiences  during  this  his  first  isola- 
tion at  a  distance  from  all  his  home  surroundings. 

On  his  arrival  at  Milwaukee  he  was  cheered 
by  the  good  prospect  for  his  lectures.  There  had 
been  a  sale  of  over  one  hundred  season  tickets. 
He  was  especially  pleased  to  find  that  the  lectures 
were  to  be  given  in  a  Unitarian  Church. 

He  gives  his  first  impressions  of  Milwaukee 
thus:  — 

"There  is  celestial  music  of  brass  and  reed  bands. 
The  city  is  very  beautiful.  I  am  ravished  with  the 
yellow  Milwaukee  brick.  Never  saw  anything  so 
picturesque  for  building  material. 

"No  language  can  do  justice  to  the  beauty  of 

400 


Lectures  in  Milwaukee 

the  weather  and  the  climate,  the  blue  loveliness  of 
Lake  Michigan,  and  the  cheery  brightness  of  the 
city.  The  streets  are  lively  here  on  Sunday;  beer- 
shops  wide  open,  and  street  music  —  quite  Euro- 
pean. I  have  Germans  at  my  lectures,  and  am 
smiled  on  at  the  big  beer-garden  where  a  glass  is 
ordered  for  the  'Herr  Professor,'  as  I  make  my  ap- 
pearance about  4  P.M." 

He  meets  two  old  friends,  the  Reverend  John  L. 
Dudley,  formerly  of  Middletown,  Connecticut,  and 
a  sort  of  spiritual  adviser  in  his  youth,  when  Fiske 
was  passing  through  his  trying  religious  experi- 
ences;1 and  his  classmate  Jeremiah  Curtin.  We 
shall  meet  with  both  these  old  friends  later.  Of 
the  former  he  writes :  — 

"I  should  be  lonely,  and  homesick,  were  it  not 
for  Dudley  with  his  good  old  smile,  and  his  dreamy 
talks  about  philosophy.  The  old  fellow's  black 
hair  is  getting  plentifully  streaked  with  gray;  but 
he  is  the  same  dear  old  dreamer,  myth-maker,  and 
poet,  that  he  always  was.  His  house  is  quite  a  little 
garden  of  delights." 

Of  Curtin,  Fiske  writes:  — 

"  Thursday  who  should  call  to  see  me  but  the 
world-renowned  Jeremiah  Curtin,  with  whom  I 
spent  all  day  Friday,  and  who  left  for  Russia  yes- 
terday morning.  Jerry  is  still  on  his  muscle  lin- 
guistically—  speaks  now  more  than  40  languages 
fluently,  and  reads  about  25  or  30  more.  During  the 
past  few  years  he  has  been  exploring  the  by-ways 

1  See  ante,  p.  no. 
401 


John  Fiske 

of  Slavonic  Europe,  and  can  now  talk  in  every 
Slavonic  language  almost  as  readily  as  in  English  — 
so  he  says,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  can.  I  found 
him  possessed  of  a  very  plethoric  budget  of  amus- 
ing and  instructive  experiences." 

Here  is  a  passage  in  a  letter  written  September 
17,  which  reflects  the  deep  tenderness  of  Fiske's 
nature :  — 

"  Eleven  years  ago  to-day  was  the  day  I  asked 
you  to  write  to  me  up  at  Petersham.1  O,  if  we  only 
were  in  Petersham  now  (dearest  spot  on  earth) 
with  our  precious  little  flock!  I  am  eaten  up  with 
homesickness,  and  think  if  I  can  ever  see  New 
England  again,  I  shall  be  content  never  to  travel 
at  all!  I  crave  every  word  from  home  as  a  drunk- 
ard craves  his  liquor,  and  the  kindest  thing  you 
can  do  for  me  will  be  to  write  a  little  almost  every 
day,  even  if  it  is  only  half  a  page,  so  that  only  I 
may  see  an  envelope  directed  by  you,  when  I  go 
for  my  mail.  Do  keep  writing,  and  tell  me  about 
all  the  little  ones  —  don't  leave  one  of  them  cut!" 

And  here  is  the  record  of  the  beginning  of  an  ac- 
quaintance that  deepened  into  a  warm  personal 
friendship  which  lasted  to  the  end  of  Fiske's 
life:  — 

"Monday  I  was  handsomely  treated  by  a  uni- 
versally accomplished  young  man  by  the  name  of 
Peckham."  2 

1  See  ante,  pp.  245-48. 

2  George  William  Peckham,  City  Librarian,  Milwaukee;  Presi- 
dent of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Arts,  Sciences,  and  Letters;  and 
author  of  several  notable  contributions  to  entomological  science. 

402 


Library  Work 

Of  Mr.  Peckham's  many  courtesies,  of  Fiske's 
pleasant  meetings  with  many  cultivated  people, 
German  refugees  and  Catholics  among  the  num- 
ber, and  of  the  public  interest  in  his  lectures,  which 
increased  to  the  end,  the  letters  make  frequent 
mention. 

Fiske  returned  from  Milwaukee,  by  way  of  New 
York,  stopping  there  three  or  four  days  to  visit  his 
mother  and  to  receive  the  felicitations  of  his 
friends  Youmans,  Holt,  Dennett,  and  others  upon 
the  favoring  prospects  that  were  opening  before  him. 

Fiske  began  his  official  work  at  the  Harvard 
Library  the  1st  of  October,  1872.  The  Library  at 
this  time  contained  some  160,000  volumes  with  a 
great  quantity  of  unclassified  and  uncatalogued 
material  consisting  of  pamphlets  and  unbound  vol- 
umes. For  several  years  Fiske's  predecessor,  the 
eminent  Biblical  scholar  and  critic,  Professor  Ezra 
Abbot,  had  been  engaged  upon  the  great  task  of 
bringing  this  in  many  respects  unorganized  collec- 
tion into  condition  for  ready  reference  through 
what  is  now  known  as  the  card  system  of  cata- 
loguing, —  a  system  then  comparatively  new,  — 
whereby  the  whole  collection  of  books  and  pam- 
phlets was  to  be  alphabetically  catalogued  by  titles, 
and  then  these  titles  classified  by  subjects,  and  the 
subjects  also  alphabetically  catalogued.  Professor 
Abbot's  work  had  been  greatly  hampered  for  want 
of  assistants,  and  at  the  time  of  his  resignation  the 
cataloguing  was  greatly  in  arrears. 

403 


John  Fiske 

Of  his  varied  duties  as  librarian,  Fiske  has 
given  such  an  interesting  account  in  his  published 
volume,  "  Darwinism  and  Other  Essays,"  that  I 
need  not  dwell  upon  them  here,  further  than  to  say 
that  the  carrying-on  of  the  cataloguing  of  the  Li- 
brary with  the  means  at  his  command  was  a  press- 
ing need  and  one  that  he  had  to  face.  While  he  did 
not  bring  to  his  task  any  practical  experience  in 
the  clerical  routine  work  of  the  library,  he  brought 
something  far  more  necessary  to  its  practical  needs, 
—  a  service  wholly  exceptional  in  character  and 
without  which  the  library  would  have  been  even 
more  severely  handicapped  than  it  was  during 
this  period  of  transition  to  the  great  practical  li- 
brary that  it  is  to-day  This  service  was  his  power 
of  classification  arising  from  his  familiar  acquaint- 
ance with  the  various  departments  of  human  knowl- 
edge, whereby  he  was  enabled  to  carry  on  in  some 
measure,  although  checked  by  serious  obstacles, 
Professor  Abbot's  scheme  of  having  the  contents 
of  the  library  classified  and  catalogued  by  subjects 
as  well  as  by  titles. 

Fiske  entered  upon  his  duties  with  great  ardor 
and  soon  brought  himself  in  conformity  with  the 
routine  requirements.  He  quickly  mastered  the 
conditions  for  the  work  of  cataloguing,  and  planned 
for  expediting  the  work;  but  just  as  he  had  got  his 
plans  ready  for  the  consideration  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  the  Library  there  came  the  great  Boston 
fire,  November  9  and  10,  1872,  byjwhich  Harvard 

404 


Library  Work  , 

College  met  with  a  heavy  loss  in  its  invested  funds. 
For  a  time,  it  seemed  as  though  a  material  reduc- 
tion in  expenditures  would  have  to  be  made  through- 
out the  college;  and  the  letters  reveal  Fiske  as  fac- 
ing not  only  the  giving-up  of  his  plans  for  expe- 
diting the  catalogue  work,  but  also  the  probable 
reduction  of  the  present  inadequate  library  force, 
with  perhaps  a  reduction  of  salary  for  those  who 
remained. 

By  the  prompt  action  of  the  friends  of  Harvard, 
however,  the  current  needs  of  the  college  were  pro- 
vided for  by  the  raising  of  a  generous  relief  fund, 
and  the  administration  was  relieved  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  curtailing  in  any  marked  degree  its  exist- 
ing very  economical  expenditures.  Fiske's  plans, 
however,  for  expediting  the  cataloguing  of  the 
library  had  to  be  postponed. 

Obliged  to  suspend  that  portion  of  his  work  as 
librarian  most  congenial  to  him,  Fiske  soon  settled 
down  to  the  daily  routine  of  supervising  the  cleri- 
cal work  of  the  library,  and  during  the  ensuing  six 
months,  —  November,  1872  to  May,  1873,  —  his 
literary  work  was  entirely  suspended  save  the  writ- 
ing each  month  of  two  or  three  pages  of  "  Science 
Notes "  for  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly."  During  this 
period  two  things  worthy  of  note  occurred  —  the 
publication  of  his  book  on  "Myths  and  Myth- 
Makers,"  and  the  repetition  of  his  lectures  on 
Evolution  in  Boston.  His  Myths  volume  was  his 
first  book  publication,  and  it  was  felicitously  dedi- 

405 


John  Fiske 

cated  to  his  friend  Howells.1  The  book  was  very 
favorably  received  both  in  America  and  England, 
and  as  we  shall  see  later,  it  formed  a  very  mem- 
orable introduction  of  Fiske  to  George  Eliot.2 

The  repetition  of  his  lectures  in  Boston  in  the 
winter  of  1873  attracted  a  much  larger  audience 
than  on  their  first  delivery  at  Harvard,  and  they 
were  attended  with  even  more  marked  expressions 
of  appreciation  than  were  given  to  their  delivery  in 
Bos  ton  the  year  previous.  Indeed,  their  close  brought 
to  him  a  tribute  the  most  gratifying  he  could  re- 
ceive, and  one  that  touched  his  deepest  feelings. 

Among  his  hearers  in  Boston  was  Mrs.  M.  A. 
Edwards,  a  lady  of  great  refinement  and  intelligence, 
who  became  profoundly  impressed  with  the  impor- 
tance of  the  religious  implications  of  the  philosophy 
of  Evolution  as  presented  by  Fiske,  and  who  saw  a 
supreme  act  of  social  service  in  assisting  Fiske  to 
get  his  ideas  before  the  public  in  published  form. 
On  hearing  that  Fiske  was  withholding  his  lectures 
from  publication  until  he  could  make  it  conven- 
ient to  consult  with  Herbert  Spencer,  Darwin, 

1  The  dedication  was  as  follows:  — 

To  MY  DEAR  FRIEND 
WILLIAM    DEAN   HOWELLS 

IN   REMEMBRANCE    OF   PLEASANT   AUTUMN 

EVENINGS   SPENT   AMONG   WERE-WOLVES 

AND   TROLLS   AND    NIXES 

I   DEDICATE 
THIS  RECORD   OF   OUR  ADVENTURES 

2  See  post,  p.  484. 

406 


European  Trip 

Huxley,  and  other  Evolutionists  in  England,  Mrs. 
Edwards,  with  true  womanly  delicacy,  sent  a  note 
to  Mrs.  Fiske  enclosing  a  check  for  one  thousand 
dollars,  which  she  wished  appropriated  to  the  ex- 
penses of  a  journey  to  England  for  the  revision  of 
Fiske's  lectures  for  publication  in  the  light  of  the 
Evolutionary  thought  prevailing  in  England. 
i  A  most  enthusiastic  family  council  was  at  once 
held.  The  next  step  was  to  get  a  leave  of  absence 
from  the  college  —  and  here,  President  Eliot  met 
Fiske's  application  in  the  most  cordial  spirit,  telling 
him  he  should  *  'seize  the  opportunity  by  all  means ' ' ; 
and  to  give  Fiske  ease  of  mind,  he  not  only  had 
his  leave  of  absence  granted,  he  also  had  his  ap- 
pointment as  assistant  librarian  made  permanent. 
i  With  every  obstacle  to  his  long-looked-for  Euro- 
pean trip  removed,  Fiske  turned  his  thought  to 
arranging  a  detailed  plan  of  his  journey.  I  have 
before  me  his  itinerary  of  four  and  a  half  letter- 
pages  in  his  clear,  beautiful  handwriting,  in  which, 
after  a  careful  study  of  the  European  means  of 
transportation,  he  projected  a  plan  for  every  day's 
activity  during  the  entire  Continental  journey. 
While  the  plan  was  not  carried  out  in  all  its  de- 
tails, —  he  at  first  thought  of  visiting  Greece  and 
Constantinople,  —  the  itinerary,  as  originally  laid 
out,  is  a  self-revealing  autobiographic  document,  in 
that  it  unmistakably  shows  what  were  the  domi- 
nant interests  in  European  history  and  civiliza- 
tion in  Fiske's  mind,  as  he  contemplated  bringing 

407 


John  Fiske 

a  goodly  portion  of  the  physical  features  of  the 
European  continent  under  direct  obsersation. 

It  is  evident  that  he  proposed  to  observe  Euro- 
pean civilization  in  the  light  of  Spencer's  law  of 
life —  "the  continuous  adjustment  of  internal  re- 
lations to  external  relations."  Hence  we  see  him 
proposing  to  observe  Nature  with  her  external  pro- 
visions for  human  life,  together  with  man's  utili- 
zation of  her  forces  for  convenient  living  as  well 
as  his  artistic  creations  —  especially  his  architec- 
ture—  expressive  of  his  spiritual  life.  And  then, 
as  supplementary  to  all  these,  Fiske  longed  to  look 
upon  places  made  memorable  by  great  lives  — 
lives  which  have  left  the  human  race  their  debtors. 
Hence  in  his  original  plan  he  proposed  to  look 
upon  what  remains  of  the  physical  and  social  en- 
vironment of  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  as  well 
as  upon  the  surroundings  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and 
Caesar,  of  Dante  and  Michael  Angelo,  of  Shake- 
speare and  Newton,  of  Voltaire  and  Goethe.  i 

As  one  of  the  principal  objects  of  his  visit  to 
England  was  to  consult  with  Herbert  Spencer,  as 
soon  as  he  had  completed  his  arrangements  for 
sailing  he  advised  Spencer  of  his  projected  visit 
by  the  following  letter:  — 

HARVARD  COLLEGE, 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  June  8,  1873. 

My  dear  Mr.  Spencer :  — 

At  last  I  seem  likely  to  see  you  face  to  face.  An 
unexpected  and  surprising  stroke  of  good  fortune 

408 


European  Trip 

enables  me  to  spend  a  year  in  Europe.  I  shall  sail 
from  Boston  in  the  '  Olympus'  August  I2th  reach- 
ing Queenstown,  I  suppose  August  22d.  I  shall  land 
there  and  run  through  Ireland  and  over  to  Glas- 
gow; and  my  further  plan  is  to  go  slowly  through 
parts  of  Scotland  and  England,  reaching  London 
about  the  middle  of  October. 

I  should  now  like  very  much  to  know  whether 
you  are  likely  to  be  in  Scotland  or  northern  Eng- 
land in  September,  so  that  I  might  run  across  your 
path?  Also  when  are  you  likely  to  return  to  Lon- 
don for  the  winter?  When  are  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lewes 
likely  to  have  returned  to  London?  Mr.  Darwin 
has  invited  me  to  visit  him,  at  his  place  in  Kent: 
am  I  likely  to  be  able  to  accomplish  all  these  things 
by  reaching  London  about  October  I5th  and  re- 
maining there  till  Christmas? 

I  intend  to  take  a  room  in  London  and  devote 
myself  to  completing  and  publishing  my  lectures 
in  book-form.  If  this  can  be  accomplished  by  mid- 
winter, I  hope  then  to  go  to  Italy,  and  thence  in 
April  to  Germany  and  thence  in  July  to  Switzerland, 
returning  to  America  in  August  —  I  should  be  glad 
to  spend  the  whole  year  in  England,  but  as  I  may 
not  again  have  an  equally  good  opportunity  to 
visit  the  Continent,  I  feel  that  I  ought  not  to  let 
this  one  slip.  During  the  past  two  years  my  health 
has  suffered  somewhat  from  overwork  and  monot- 
ony; and  I  think  a  good  deal  of  variety  for  one 
year  will  bring  back  some  of  the  youthful  snap. 

I  count  more  upon  seeing  you  than  upon  any- 
thing else  connected  with  my  journey;  and  I  hope 
to  get  a  few  good  talks  with  you  without  making 
too  great  demands  upon  your  time. 

409 


John  Fiske 

Youmans  has  just  sent  me  a  specimen  of  your 
Sociological  Tables,  and  I  am  very  much  interested 
in  it.  I  hope  the  "  Sociology  "  itself  is  not  to  be  long 
delayed. 

With  warm  anticipations  of  the  coming  autumn 
I  remain, 

Ever  faithfully  yours, 

JOHN  FISKE. 

In  addition  to  arranging  for  the  conduct  of  the 
work  at  the  library  during  his  absence,  Fiske  had 
two  pieces  of  literary  work  to  do  before  sailing  — 
the  writing  of  an  essay  on  Darwinism,  or  "  From 
Brute  to  Man,"  for  the  "  North  American  Review," 
and  an  article  on  Agassiz  for  the  "  Popular  Science 
Monthly."  The  letters  reveal  him  tugging  at  his 
task  during  the  intervening  hot  July  days,  cheered 
by  visions  of  the  Scotch  Highlands,  which  he 
seemed  to  see  near  at  hand.  Both  articles  were 
finished  on  time,  although  work  on  the  Agassiz 
article  was  continued  till  the  last  moment.  Just 
before  starting  for  the  steamer  he  writes :  —  I 

"  Chauncey  Wright  dropped  in  and  solaced  — 
or  distracted  my  last  packing  moments  with  phil- 
osophy. But  I  fixed  up  my  Agassiz  article,  in  spite 
of  him."  Fiske's  purpose  in  the  Agassiz  article  was 
to  show  that  Agassiz's  opposition  to  Darwinism  was 
individual  and  personal,  was  not  based  on  a  com- 
plete knowledge  of  Darwin's  contribution  to  the 
great  discussion,  and  was  not  in  accord  with  the 
leading  scientific  thought  of  the  time.  Fiske  duly 

410 


European  Trip 

appreciated  Agassiz's  important  contributions  to 
science,  and  was  by  no  means  insensible  to  the 
charms  of  his  rare  personality;  but  he  was  deeply 
stirred  at  the  wholly  undue  weight  which  the  theo- 
logical world  was  attaching  to  Agassiz's  opinions, 
making  him  a  sort  of  pope  on  ultimate  scientific 
questions,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  scien- 
tific world  was  against  him.  Hence  Fiske  was 
goaded  into  a  criticism  which,  had  he  known  the 
critical  condition  of  Agassiz's  health,  he  would  have 
greatly  modified.  His  object  was  to  bring  Agassiz's 
contention  for  the  special  creation  of  man  by  Di- 
vine fiat,  which  was  then  a  vital  religious  as  well  as 
an  important  scientific  question,  under  the  broad- 
est discussion.1 

August  12,  1873,  Fiske  sailed  from  Boston  for 
Queenstown,  on  the  Cunard  steamer  "  Olympus/1 

1  The  article  was  published  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  for 
October,  1873.  Agassiz  died  December  14,  1873.  Through  his  teach- 
ing, through  his  public  lectures,  and  through  his  personal  sacrifices 
in  establishing  his  great  Museum  of  Natural  History  at  Cambridge, 
a  monument  to  the  very  doctrine  of  Evolution  which  he  condemned, 
Agassiz  had  won  the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  who  felt  his  death 
as  a  national  loss.  Under  these  circumstances  Fiske's  article  was 
untimely,  and  so  far  as  it  was  considered  in  America,  was  regarded 
as  unjust.  Quite  a  different  opinion,  however,  in  regard  to  the  article 
was  expressed  in  England,  as  we  shall  see  a  little  later  when  Agassiz's 
position  as  a  scientist  was  brought  under  discussion  by  some  of  the 
foremost  thinkers  and  scientists  of  the  time. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DIVERSIONS  —  PIANO  PRACTICE  AND  MUSICAL  COM- 
POSITIONS—  BEGINS  COMPOSITION  OF  A  MASS  — 
PHILOSOPHIC  THOUGHT  AND  RELIGIOUS  FEELING 
—  DOMESTIC  LIFE  IN  CAMBRIDGE  AND  PETERSHAM 

I87I-I873 

Now  that  we  have  seen  Fiske  set  sail  for  England 
for  the  purpose  of  completing  his  philosophic  task, 
before  following  him  through  his  English  experi- 
ences which  made  the  visit  a  memorable  epoch  in 
his  life,  it  is  well  to  turn  back  and  briefly  note 
two  forms  of  diversion  which  accompanied  the 
phase  of  his  intellectual  life  that  we  have  been 
pursuing. 

We  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  note  his 
strong  musical  taste  —  we  might  say,  his  passion 
for  music.  It  is  evident  that  had  he  chosen  to  de- 
vote himself  to  music,  he  would  have  become  dis- 
tinguished in  the  musical  profession.  As  it  was,  he 
became  greatly  respected  by  leading  musicians,  as 
a  keen  appreciator  and  critic  of  the  higher  forms 
of  musical  composition  and  rendering.  It  is  inter- 
esting, therefore,  to  note  that  at  this  important 
period  of  his  life,  when  he  was  grappling  with  the 
greatest  of  themes  that  can  engage  the  human 
mind,  his  musical  taste  asserted  itself,  and  in  two 
directions  —  in  piano  studies  for  the  mastery  of 

412 


Musical  Diversion 

the  piano  as  a  means  for  musical  expression,  and 
in  musical  composition. 

Fiske's  piano  studies  were  an  after-dinner  diver- 
sion of  an  hour.  He  was  aided  in  this  practice 
by  his  friend  Mrs.  Alexander  Mackenzie,  of  whose 
generous  assistance  he  writes  to  his  mother  under 
date  of  March  2,  1871,  thus:  — 

"  My  amusements  at  present  are  limited  to  play- 
ing piano  duets  with  the  orthodox  minister's  wife, 
our  warm  friend,  once  a  week.  She  is  a  most  fin- 
ished and  artistic  pianist,  and  it  is  about  as  useful 
to  me  as  taking  lessons.  I  felt  much  encouraged 
and  flattered  by  the  invitation.  I  take  the  hour  be- 
tween the  close  of  lecture  and  dinner  each  Wednes- 
day. We  began  with  Mendelssohn's  '  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream/  and  shall  by-and-by  take 
something  harder.  I  learn  much  in  this  way,  and 
am  getting  into  the  true  way  of  fingering." 

And  a  little  later  he  writes :  — 

"We  are  now  on  Mozart's  four-hand  Sonata  in 
D  and  several  polonaises.  I  have  mastered  a  Noc- 
turne of  Chopin  all  but  two  bars.  If  you  ever  see  a 
concert  programme  with  Mendelssohn's  Meerestile 
Overture  on  it,  don't  fail  to  go  and  hear  it.  You 
would  never  forget  it.  It  is  one  of  the  most  mar- 
vellous pieces  of  harmony  ever  conceived.  It  is 
like  the  music  of  angels."  1 

Fiske  became  very  proficient  with  the  piano,  so 
much  so  that  he  could  readily  extemporize  upon 
it,  and  thus  it  became  to  him  a  great  means  of  men- 
tal relaxation,  of  expressing  feelings  through  harmo- 

413 


John  Fiske 

nies  and  without  words.  He  soon  put  his  musical 
proficiency  to  service  in  giving  form  to  his  reli- 
gious feeling.  I  find  mention  of  two  hymns  com- 
posed at  this  time  with  these  suggestive  titles, 
"Come  unto  Me/'  and  "A  Hymn  of  Trust."  The 
latter  was  in  E  major  with  modulation  in  C  sharp 
minor,  and  he  says  of  it:  "  I  composed  it  last  even- 
ing. It  is  good,  I  think." 

Under  date  of  December  24,  1871,  he  writes:  — 

"  I  have  sketched  the  Qui  Tollis  of  my  Mass, 
soprano  solo,  semi-chorus,  full  chorus  in  D  minor. 
I  am  trying  to  avoid  my  fault  of  too  complicated 
harmony  and  excursive  modulation,  and  so  far  feel 
more  satisfied  with  it  than  with  any  of  my  older 
things.  I  don't  know  as  I  shall  finish  it,  for  a  Mass 
is  a  long  thing,  and  I  get  no  time  to  write  what  I 
have  already  composed  of  it.  Sometimes  my  head 
is  bubbling  and  boiling  with  harmonies  as  I  go 
about  in  the  horse-cars  or  on  foot." 

A  little  later:  — 

"My  Mass  has  spoiled,  for  the  time  being,  my 
piano  practice.  I  have  scored  the  Kyrie  and  Glo- 
ria, and  composed  the  Qui  Tollis,  Quoniam,  Cum 
Sancto  Spiritu,  and  got  half-way  through  the 
Credo.  The  accompaniments  bother  me.  I  can  hear 
the  violins,  clarionets,  hautboys,  flutes,  trumpets, 
drums  and  organ  coming  in  where  they  ought:  the 
double-basses  crooning,  the  cellos  sighing,  etc.,  but 
I  don't  know  how  to  write  for  these  instruments, 
and  so  shall  have  to  be  content  with  a  plain  organ 
accompaniment.  Not  much  matter  though,  as  I 

414 


Composing  a  Mass 

shall  probably  never  hear  it  any  way  except  with 
the  ears  of  the  imagination.  Two  or  three  musi- 
cians have  examined  the  score  as  far  as  it  has  gone, 
and  like  it.  John  Paine  says  the  melody  and  har- 
mony are  good,  some  of  the  themes  grand  —  at 
any  rate,  a  few  bars  per  day  of  it  serve  for  a  relief 
to  the  mind." 

And  still  later  he  writes :  — 

"  My  Mass  has  got  thus  far:  — 

"i.  Kyrie  Eleeson  —  Chorus  —  Adagio. 

"2.  Gloria  in  Excelsis  —  Chorus,  Allegro  Mod- 
erato. 

"3.  Qui  Tollis  —  Solos  and  Chorus  Larghetto. 

"4.  Quoniam  —  Solo  Allegretto. 

"5.  Cum  Sancto  Spiritu  —  Fugue  Allegro  Con- 
brio. 

"  6.  Credo  —  Chorus  —  Allegro. 

11 7.  Et  incarnatus  est  —  Chorale  Andante. 

"This  makes  just  half  of  the  whole  Mass.  The 
1  Crucifixus '  —  an  alia  breve  fugue  —  is  taking 
shape  in  my  head.  You  will  like  this  music  even 
as  sketched  on  the  piano.  Paine  says,  it  contains 
much  that '  a  great  composer  need  n't  be  ashamed 
of.'  The  harmony  is  for  the  most  part  simple, 
and  the  general  style  rather  antique.  The  '  Cum 
Sancto '  is  a  very  rapid  and  spirited  fugue  —  a 
style  which  I  always  supposed  beyond  my  reach 
—  but  I  did  it  in  one  after-dinner  hour  —  I  don't 
know  how." 

In  1872  he  was  still  at  work  upon  it.  On  April  1 1, 
1872,  he  writes:  — 

"  I  have  finished  my  '  Crucifixus'  and  sketched 

415 


John  Fiske 

the  '  Resurrexit,'  so  that  the  Mass  is  two- thirds 
done."  , 

The  last  mention  of  the  Mass  in  this  connection 
was  February  6,  1873,  when  he  wrote:  — 

11 1  am  studying  Cherubini  on  counterpoint,  and 
am  working  at  the  'Pleni  Sunt  Coeli'  of  my  Mass 
—  which  I  am  making  an  elaborate  fugue,  the 
parts  entering  at  regular  distances  and  intervals, 
and  working  up  into  a  tremendous  climax  with  a 
long  cantus  firmus."  ;  j 

It  may  be  said  that  there  is  a  marked  inconsist- 
ency here  between  Fiske's  philosophical  thinking 
and  his  musical  feeling  —  that  while  intellectually 
he  had  no  place  for  Christian  dogma,  yet  in  his 
heart  he  made  the  Eucharist  the  subject  of  his 
sublimest  feeling  and  aspirations.  , 

But  there  was  no  inconsistency.  In  his  philosoph- 
ical system  Fiske  regarded  the  Christian  dogmas 
as  outgrown  symbols  of  religious  thought  and  be- 
lief which  had  served  their  purpose  —  and  a  great 
purpose  —  in  the  development  of  man's  religious 
thought;  and  he  was  so  justly  minded  that  he  could 
survey  with  impartiality  and  with  a  sympathetic 
feeling,  the  centuries  of  Christian  history  when  the 
Eucharist  was  the  deepest,  the  profoundest  expres- 
sion of  the  religious  feeling  of  mankind.  His  Mass 
was  an  attempt  to  give  expression  to  this  feeling  in 
its  historic,  poetic  sense,  with  all  the  enrichment 
he  could  give  to  it  through  the  musical  art.  His 
philosophy  and  his  Mass,  therefore,  were  in  accord 

416 


Domestic  Life 

in  this,  that  both  affirmed  the  religious  emotions 
as  the  deepest  impulses  of  the  human  soul:  the 
Mass  was  an  attempt  to  give  to  this  feeling  an 
artistic,  historic  form.  In  the  same  sense  he  re- 
garded the  oratorios  of  Handel,  Bach,  and  Haydn 
as  the  highest  expression  of  religious  emotion,  and 
he  could  enter  into  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  "  Crea- 
tion," the  "Elijah,"  or  the  " Messiah"  without 
thought  of  their  dogmatic  significance.  There  are 
many  who  recall  occasions  when  the  great  oratorios 
were  produced  by  the  Handel  and  Haydn  Society 
of  Boston  —  how  the  profoundly  impressive  cho- 
ral parts  quite  overcame  him. 

In  Fiske's  mind  Christianity  was  the  mightiest 
drama  in  human  civilization:  it  was  his  rare  gift 
that  he  could  appreciate  it  with  the  feeling  of  the 
poet  as  well  as  with  the  critical  judgment  of  the 
philosopher. 

Fiske  was  preeminently  a  domestic  man  in  all 
his  tastes  and  feelings.  His  home  was  the  centre 
of  his  life,  his  "earthly  paradise."  And  the  letters, 
while  revealing  the  workings  of  his  mind  on  the 
profoundest  questions  of  philosophy,  constantly 
bear  witness  to  the  tender  regard  and  solicitude, 
the  deep  affection,  he  had  for  his  wife  and  his  chil- 
dren. The  anniversaries  of  the  main  events  in  his 
courtship  and  marriage  were  never  forgotten,  and 
we  already  have  had  occasion  to  note  how  ten- 
derly they  were  cherished  if  perchance  he  was  away 
from  his  home.  His  patience  with  and  his  delight 

417 


John  Fiske 

in  his  children,  which  have  already  been  noted,  re- 
flected the  happy  poise  of  his  mind  in  his  inter- 
course with  them.  He  delighted  in  their  childish 
propensities  to  know  about  things,  and  he  had  a 
ready  sympathy  for  them  in  all  their  little  mis- 
fortunes. One  of  his  chief  delights  was  to  picnic 
with  them:  if  in  Cambridge,  at  Spy  Pond,  a  beau- 
tiful sheet  of  water  a  couple  of  miles  or  so  distant; 
if  in  Petersham,  in  the  many  attractive  places 
roundabout,  such  as  Tom's  Swamp,  Philipston 
Pond,  and  "  Cut-Supper "  Wood,  so  called  by 
William  James;  a  beautiful  spot,  where  he  and  the 
Fiskes  were  wont  to  tarry  beyond  the  supper-hour. 
The  picnics  at  Spy  Pond  were  of  special  interest. 
They  were  usually  made  on  Sunday.  Apropos  of 
this  statement  we  have  a  letter  to  his  mother  of 
November  12,  1873:  — 

"Next  Sunday  Abby  and  Harold,  Clarence  and 
I  are  going  to  take  a  car  to  Arlington  and  then 
walk  around  Mystic  Pond,  a  most  exquisitely 
beautiful  bit  of  country  road  of  six  miles.  We  shall 
take  a  basket  of  sandwiches  and  ale,  and  picnic 
under  a  giant  oak  tree  and  have  a  good  time.  Pos- 
sibly the  weather  may  turn  cold  and  prevent  us, 
but  so  far  the  season  is  warm  and  we  hope  to  carry 
out  this  little  November  picnic.  These  little  Sun- 
day frolics  with  Abby  and  the  children  make  up  my 
greatest  happiness.  And  how  I  bless  the  day  when 
I  can  enjoy  life  with  them!" 

Partly  for  such  excursions  Fiske  had  had  made 
from  his  own  design  a  double  perambulator,  or 

418 


Domestic  Life 

push  carriage,  large  enough  to  take  in  two,  and,  if 
need  be,  three,  of  the  children.  Into  this  carriage  he 
would  pack  Maud  and  Harold  and  sometimes  little 
Clarence,  and  then  pushing  the  carriage  he  would 
wend  his  way  through  the  market  gardens  of  North 
Cambridge  and  Arlington  to  the  pond,  supremely 
happy  to  put  aside  for  the  time  being  all  the  prob- 
lems of  philosophy  to  make  himself  one  in  the  little 
world  of  his  children 's  delights  and  imaginations. 
Occasionally  his  friend  John  K.  Paine  was  one  of 
the  party,  and  on  one  excursion  he  met  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell,  who,  looking  at  his  precious  freight, 
said  in  the  vernacular  of  Hosea  Biglow,  "I  wish 
they  wuz  every  one  on  'em  mine." 

And  then  there  was  the  annual  June  visit  to  Bos- 
ton of  Barnum's  Circus,  which  was  looked  forward 
to  every  spring  by  the  little  Fiskes  with  the  fondest 
anticipations.  One  of  my  pleasantest  recollections 
of  Fiske  is  his  appearance  on  one  of  these  happy 
occasions  with  Maud  and  Harold  on  either  side  and 
little  Clarence  in  his  lap,  and  his  own  countenance 
—  to  use  a  Dickens  expression  —  "one  vast  sub- 
stantial smile." 

This  becoming  a  companion  with  his  children 
in  the  little  world  of  their  concerns  produced  at 
times  striking  effects  when  the  children,  having 
been  brought  into  contact  with  his  larger  philo- 
sophic thought,  endeavored  in  a  naive,  childish 
way  to  appropriate  this  thought  to  their  own  expe- 
rience. Maud  and  Harold  were  not  excluded  from 

419 


John  Fiske 

the  library  when  intimate  friends  like  Paine,  Wil- 
liam James,  Howells,  Chauncey  Wright,  Professor 
Gurney,  or  Roberts  were  calling,  and  when  the 
conversation  turned,  as  it  often  did,  on  the  great 
problems  of  Evolution.  The  children  were  quiet, 
thoughtful  observers  and  listeners;  and  reflections 
of  the  library  discussions  were  not  unfrequently 
taken  upstairs  and  seriously  applied  to  questions 
less  complicated  than  that  of  Evolution.  On  one  oc- 
casion a  difference  of  opinion  arose  between  Maud 
and  Harold  over  some  weighty  matter  in  their  ex- 
perience, when  the  following  argument  was  over- 
heard :  —  i 

"Well,  Maudie,  I  guess  it  was  due  to  the  eccen- 
tricity of  the  earth's  corbit." 

41  No,  Rally,  I  think  it  was  due  to  the  convapora- 
tion  of  Saturn's  rings." 

The  fine  poetic  side  of  Fiske' s  nature  is  clearly 
reflected  in  the  following  passage  in  a  letter  to  his 
mother  of  June  19,  1872,  in  which  he  sketches  his 
immediate  home  surroundings :  — 

"As  I  sit  here  at  work  and  occasionally  glance 
out  of  the  window,  I  might  imagine  myself  in  thick 
woods.  I  cannot  see  the  street  or  any  other  house — 
nothing  but  a  little  Gothic  church  spire  over  the 
tree  tops.  Still  I  get  plenty  of  sunlight  all  day  — 
it  breaks  in  through  the  leaves.  Though  in  the 
very  centre  of  Cambridge  the  stillness  is  profound, 
almost  like  Petersham.  The  song  of  birds  is  al- 
most the  only  sound  which  comes  in  from  morn 
till  night  —  little  sweet  twitters,  with  now  and  then 

420 


Domestic  Life 

a  distant  cock-crow.  It  is  a  delicious  place.  Now 
and  then  I  hear  a  little  voice,  and,  looking  out, 
see  Maudie's  flax,  or  Clarence's  or  '  Barley's'  little 
red  head  down  among  the  bushes;  or  perhaps  Wini- 
fred Howells,  reading  to  Maud  under  the  apple- 
tree." 

And  now,  August  n,  1873,  the  time  had  come 
when  Fiske  must  leave  his  little  flock  for  a  whole 
year's  absence.  They  were  all  in  Petersham.  The 
day  before  leaving  he  took  them  to  drive  to  the 
various  places  made  dear  by  associations.  He  left 
at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the  parting  was 
"sorrowful  and  heavy."  His  ride  to  the  cars  at 
Athol,  nine  miles  distant,  took  him  over  the  same 
road  he  had  walked  nearly  twelve  years  before,  on 
the  occasion  of  his  first,  romantic  visit  to  Peters- 
ham. As  he  came  to  the  rise  in  the  road,  a  short 
distance  from  the  village,  —  giving  an  overlook  of 
the  village,  —  and  which  he  had  called  Mount 
Pisgah,1  as  he  said,  "  from  here  I  got  my  first  view 
of  the  Holy  City,"  he  turned  to  look  back  at  a 
scene  which  was  now  familiar  to  him;  and  at  once 
there  came  surging  through  his  mind  the  series  of 
events  which  had  followed  from  that  romantic  ad- 
venture of  September  13,  1861,  and  which  had  knit 
him  to  Petersham  as  the  dearest  spot  on  earth. 

The  next  day,  just  after  going  on  board  the 
steamer,  he  sends  a  good-bye  message  to  Mrs. 
Fiske  containing  this  request:  — 

1  See  ante,  p.  246. 
421 


John  Fiske 

"  I  must  have  a  pickerwow l  of  basket- wagon, 
with  yourself  on  back  seat  holding  Ethel,  and  all 
the  other  babies  artistically  disposed.  It  will  be 
better  without  me:  for  it  will  be  as  if  I  had  just 
stepped  out,  and  was  looking  at  the  rest  of  you. 
Don't  forget  to  send  this  to  me." 

1  "We  shall  see  that  this  particular  "pickerwow"  was  of  much 
interest  to  Fiske's  friends  in  England. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

VOYAGE  TO  QUEENSTOWN  —  VISITS  CORK,  BLARNEY 
CASTLE,  LAKES  OF  KILLARNEY,  AND  DUBLIN  — 
REACHES  CHESTER — FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ENG- 
LAND AND  ENGLISH  PEOPLE  —  A  HURRIED  TRIP 
TO  LONDON  WITH  HIS  FRIEND  HUTTON,  THENCE 
TO  LIVERPOOL  —  VISITS  THE  LAKE  DISTRICT  — 
EDINBURGH  —  SCOTCH  HIGHLANDS  —  CATHEDRAL 
TOWNS  —  IPSWICH  —  CAMBRIDGE 

1873 

FISKE  reached  Queenstown  August  23,  1873,  after 
an  uneventful  voyage  of  eleven  days.  He  made 
a  few  friends  on  board,  and  with  the  captain, 
McDowall,  "a  jolly  old  Scot  who  liked  a  pot  of 
beer  and  a  pipe,"  he  soon  established  friendly  rela- 
tions. With  the  captain  he  usually  had  a  good 
"chin- wag"  after  lunch  or  before  going  to  bed. 

At  Queenstown  he  left  the  steamer  for  a  trip 
through  Ireland  which  comprised  a  visit  to  Cork, 
to  Blarney  Castle,  to  the  Lakes  of  Killarney,  and 
to  Dublin.  During  this  trip  he  surrendered  him- 
self completely  to  the  beauty  of  the  Irish  land- 
scape and  to  the  charm  he  felt  in  the  naive  charac- 
teristics of  the  Irish  people.  The  letters  show  such 
penetrating  observation,  such  keen  appreciation 
of  nature  and  life  and  human  history,  that  it  may 
be  doubted  if  Ireland  ever  had  a  more  sympathetic 
visitor.  From  the  Imperial  Hotel,  Cork,  he  writes 
Mrs.  Fiske,  August  24:  — 

423 


John  Fiske 

"I  got  off  at  Queenstown  and  am  doing  Ould 
Ireland.  This  is  a  dear  old  quaint  hotel,  ever  so 
comfortable.  No  words  can  describe  my  delight  in 
the  beauty  and  sleepiness  of  Ould  Ireland  and  at 
the  queer  Corkonian  Paddies.  I  laughed  yesterday 
till  I  cried.  How  lovely  the  old  walls  covered  with 
thick  ivy!  To-day  our  party,  six  in  number,  are 
going  to  Blarney  Castle  in  jaunting  cars.  We  go  to 
Killarney  to-morrow.  I  feel  new  life  in  my  veins." 

Fiske  gives  a  delightful  description  of  Cork,  and 
he  was  intensely  amused  by  the  Irish  in  their  own 
home.  The  slow  deliberation  that  characterized 
all  forms  of  social  activity  greatly  impressed  him. 
This  is  the  first  thing  one  notices,  and  coming  in 
contrast  with  our  Yankee  hurry  gives  the  impres- 
sion that  everything  is  slower  than  "stock-still." 
Speaking  of  the  waiters  at  a  sleepily  served  dinner 
he  says :  — 

"You  will  never  know  what  slowness  is  till  you 
have  visited  Ould  Ireland.  Barley  at  dressing  time 
is  lightning  compared  with  'em." 

Of  his  visit  to  Blarney  Castle  he  gives  an  amus- 
ing account,  and  particularly  of  his  attempt  to  kiss 
the  well-known  Blarney  stone :  — 

"  I  prostrated  myself,  and  Williams  and  Ingalls 
took  tight  hold  of  my  ankles,  and  I  got  nearly  out 
to  the  cussed  thing,  when  all  at  once  I  became 
aware  of  the  horrible  distance  between  me  and  the 
ground  below,  and  my  head  was  turned,  and  I  be- 
came sea-sick,  and  said,  'For  God's  sake,  pull  me 
back!'  So  they  hauled  me  in,  and  I  said,  'Blast 

424 


The  Lakes  of  Killarney 

all  beetling  eminences  henceforth,  and  let  those 
kiss  the  Blarney  stone  who  are  willing  to  lean  over 
a  place  higher  than  a  church  steeple  with  nothing 
to  hold  on  to  but  their  ankles.'  ' 

Fiske's  most  interesting  experience  in  this  Irish 
journey  was  his  visit  to  the  Lakes  of  Killarney. 
Many  as  have  been  the  visitors  to  these  lakes  it 
may  be  doubted  if  their  poetic  charms  ever  had  a 
keener  appreciation  than  was  brought  to  them  by 
this  young  American  who,  fresh  from  the  experi- 
ences of  a  nineteenth-century  civilization,  saw  for 
the  first  time  in  the  midst  of  nature's  surpassing 
loveliness  the  ruined  vestiges  of  a  mediaeval  civili- 
zation which  had  passed  away,  and  with  whose 
history  he  was  familiar. 

How  deeply,  how  profoundly  he  was  impressed 
is  shown  in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to 
Mrs.  Fiske  written  at  Killarney:  — 

"And  now  let  me  change  the  scene  to  fairy  Kil- 
larney. Away  ocean  voyage!  Away  groves  of 
Blarney!  Off  with  you,  into  dim  antiquity!  For 
it  is  now  August  27th  and  I  have  been  at  Killar- 
ney since  Monday  morning,  and  what  I  have  gone 
through  here  just  crowds  a  year  into  three  days. 
It  seems  whole  ages  since  I  saw  Blarney  Castle. 
For  this  place  is  one  that  fascinates  you  like  the 
wand  of  a  fairy,  so  that  minutes  here  are  as  good 
as  months  elsewhere.  I  used  to  think  I  knew  what 
a  fine  landscape  was;  but  now  I  give  it  up.  Killar- 
ney beats  them  all,  even  Petersham.  We  got  here 
Monday  in  time  for  noon  lunch;  and  after  lunch 

425 


John  Fiske 

started  for  the  Muckross  Abbey  —  a  wonderful  old 
place  built  in  1190,  and  now  covered  with  ivy, 
with  a  gigantic  yew-tree,  700  years  old  growing  in 
the  court-yard. 

"  I  lingered  and  lingered  here  over  the  old  graves, 
and  the  old  hearth-stones,  till  my  less  romantic 
friends  yanked  me  aboard  of  the  wagon,  and  we 
proceeded  to  Dinis  Island  and  there  took  a  four- 
oared  boat  for  the  Middle  Lower  Lakes.  I  won't 
say  anything  about  these  lakes,  for  anything  like 
an  adequate  description  of  them  would  fill  quires 
of  paper,  and  would  seem  like  raving  to  any  one 
who  has  not  seen  them.  And  now  the  climax.  We 
did  many  things  which  I  don't  allude  to,  'but  to 
dear  Innesfallen  I  must  give  a  word  or  two.  Of 
all  the  islands  which  God  ever  made  this  is  the 
most  sweet  and  truly  heart-resting  paradise.  As 
I  walked  about  the  sacred  precincts,  I  felt  such 
thrills  as  I  never  felt  before  —  the  hoary  old  mon- 
astery, built  more  than  thirteen  hundred  years 
ago,  now  fallen  into  the  richest  ivy-grown  ruins, 
but  with  the  outlines  of  every  room  and  every  fire- 
place still  distinct ;  and  the  landscape  lovely  be- 
yond everything  my  wildest  imagination  ever  con- 
ceived —  a  perfect  heaven  on  earth.  Stupendous 
ash  trees,  —  one  of  them  40  feet  in  circumference, 
and  others  but  little  less,  —  enormous  beeches, 
with  their  dark  iodine- tinted  leaves,  and  their  stems 
standing  ten  feet  in  diameter;  amazing  holly- 
trees  of  a  size  that  would  do  credit  to  a  New 
England  maple;  and  round,  above,  below,  and 
everywhere,  the  omnipresent  ivy,  with  leaves  four 
inches  in  breadth  and  the  deepest  of  deep  greens. 
And  then  the  blue  lake  visible  through  every  vista 

426 


The  Lakes  of  Killarney 

whichever  way  you  turn;  and  beyond,  the  grand 
Kerry  mountains,  like  a  dozen  or  twenty  Monad- 
nocks  piled  one  upon  another  in  desolate,  awe-in- 
spiring grandeur!  And  when  amid  all  this  wondrous 
glory  of  nature  I  sat  down  for  a  moment  on  the 
grave  of  an  old  friar 1  —  dead  more  than  a  thousand 
years  —  and  tried  feebly  to  look  about  and  take 
in  all  the  miraculous  picture  —  I  felt  the  chokes 
come  and  the  tears  in  my  eyes,  and  I  knew  that 
words  would  be  utterly  powerless  to  describe  any 
such  thing,  you  must  feel  it  to  know  it;  but  I  will 
say  that  I  never  before  had,  and  somehow  can 
hardly  hope  to  have  again,  such  a  moment  as  I 
felt  in  Innesfallen.  .  .  . 

"I  wandered  once  more  along  the  whispering 
aisles  of  this  temple  of  loveliness.  I  sat  down  just 
inside  the  door  of  the  ruined  monastery  where 
there  was  a  bit  of  dry  stone,  and  looked  out  at  the 
gigantic  ash-tree,  and  in  my  fancy  filled  the  scene 
with  the  stalwart  figures  of  those  grand  old  monks 
—  men  of  mighty  placidity,  begotten  of  trust  in 
God  —  who  in  the  days  of  the  decrepit  Roman 
Empire,  built  their  refuge  here,  secure  amid  the 
deep  lake- waters  from  sacrilegious  attacks.  All  the 
long,  long  past,  richly  freighted  with  memories 
came  rushing  by  me,  as  I  sat  listening  to  the  soft 
dropping  of  the  summer  shower  on  the  holly  leaves, 
and  to  the  song  of  the  thrush  —  at  my  feet  a  grave 
where  one  of  these  heroes  of  Christianity  had  slept 
these  thousand  years. 

"  I  waited  till  the  sunlight  came  once  more  flick- 
ering through  the  leaves,  and  then  took  a  last  lin- 
gering look,  and  went  away  — 

1  He  enclosed  a  fern  leaf  from  the  grave  of  the  old  friar. 
427 


John  Fiske 


"Sweet  Innesfallen!  fare  thee  well, 

May  calm  and  sunshine  long  be  thine; 
How  fair  thou  art  let  others  tell, 

While  but  to  feel  how  fair,  be  mine.'  " 

From  Killarney,  Fiske  went  direct  to  Dublin  — 
"a  stupid  ride  of  nine  hours  through  a  tame  and 
uninteresting  country.1'  He  tarried  but  a  couple 
of  hours  in  Dublin,  and  then  set  out  for  Chester 
by  way  of  Kingstown  and  Holyhead.  He  reached 
Chester  in  a  rain-storm,  weary  after  his  Irish 
journey  and  fearfully  hungry.  He  took  a  stroll 
about  the  town,  it  having  "cleared  up,"  to  get 
his  English  bearings.  He  strolled  along  the  famous 
"Rows,"  and  also  on  the  city  walls,  "and  then 
moused  around  among  the  droll  old  dens  of  the 
town."  He  also  attended  vespers  in  the  cathedral, 
where  he  heard  some  good  music.  He  was  delighted 
with  Chester,  and  his  first  impressions  can  best  be 
given  in  his  own  words:  — 

"O  Zeus,  and  all  the  other  gods  of  Olympus, 
what  an  old  place!  I  can't  try  to  describe  it;  and 
so  before  I  leave,  I  shall  send  you  a  guide-book 
giving  an  account,  and  some  views,  of  the  town. 
I  am  supremely  happy  here,  and  shall  explore  it 
from  the  sole  of  its  head  to  the  crown  of  its  foot." 

He  tells  of  the  good  things  he  finds  to  eat,  and 
adds:  — 

"  I  mention  these  little  things  to  show  you  what 
an  abundance  of  animal  vigour  the  sea  voyage, 
and  the  seeing  of  novelties  have  awakened  in  me. 

428 


At  Chester 

I  feel  the  blood  bounding  in  my  veins.  I  run  up 
three  flights  of  stairs,  two  steps  at  a  time,  to  my 
room  without  puffing. " 

At  Chester  he  found  letters  awaiting  him  and 
among  them  was  a  cordial  welcome  from  his  genial 
friend  Laurence  Hutton.  Fiske's  joy  was  great  and 
he  writes:  — 

"  Glory  Hallelujah!  Hutton  comes  here  to-day, 
and  I  have  secured  a  room  for  him  next  to  mine. 
He  sails  for  America  a  week  from  next  Tuesday, 
and  till  then  he  will  be  with  me." 

The  two  friends  explored  Chester  quite  thor- 
oughly. They  walked  in  nearly  all  the  "Rows," 
through  the  market  in  the  evening,  around  the 
walls,  and  visited  Eaton  Hall,  the  seat  of  the  Duke 
of  Westminster. 

The  letters  show  how  keenly  Fiske  was  alive  to 
his  new  surroundings.  What  most  impressed  him 
at  Chester  was  the  sort  of  English  homogeneity  of 
all  he  saw  about  him.  Hitherto  in  America  he  had 
seen  the  Englishman  as  he  had  seen  the  Irishman, 
the  Scotchman,  the  Frenchman,  the  German,  each 
isolated  from  his  own  social  habitat,  and  more  or 
less  in  antagonism  with  his  surroundings.  Here, 
for  the  first  time,  he  saw  the  Englishman  in  his 
own  social  home  with  everything  downright  English 
about  him.  The  buildings  had  a  sort  of  uniform 
English  character,  the  shop-signs  all  bore  English 
names,  the  shopkeepers,  the  clerks,  the  officials, 
the  servants  were  all  English,  save  here  and  there 

429 


John  Fiske 

a  stray  Scotchman  or  Irishman,  who  served  by  a 
little  contrast,  to  emphasize  the  universal  English 
character. 

r  Fiske  from  the  very  first  felt  much  at  home  in 
this  English  environment.  Not  only  did  its  social 
homogeneity  impress  him;  there  was  also  a  straight- 
forward, outspoken,  pay-as-you-go  honesty  in  the 
social  life  as  a  whole  which  challenged  his  admira- 
tion. Of  course  he  had  to  notice  the  many  contrasts 
in  speech,  language,  and  social  customs  between  this 
distinctly  old  and  unified  form  of  social  life  and  the 
opposite,  new,  composite  character  of  the  social 
life  of  America.  But  the  interest  in  his  obser- 
vations arises  principally  from  the  fact  that  he 
does  not  philosophize;  he  simply  gives  his  impres- 
sions without  other  thought  than  to  interest,  for  the 
time  being,  the  persons  to  whom  he  was  writing 
and  whose  main  interest  was  in  his  own  enjoy- 
ment. 

Fiske  did  not  fail  to  note  the  strong  English  pro- 
pensity for  good,  substantial  living,  and  the  letters 
are  at  times  quite  appetizing  from  the  relishing 
way  in  which  he  sets  forth  the  beef,  the  mutton, 
the  puddings,  the  ale,  and  the  wholesome,  savory 
manner  in  which  they  were  served.  The  charac- 
teristics of  the  English  system  of  railway  transpor- 
tation —  so  different  from  what  obtained  in  Amer- 
ica—  he  had  to  note,  especially  as  he  experienced, 
as  all  American  travellers  do,  the  annoyance  of  be- 
ing tied  to  one's  " luggage";  and  he  expresses  the 

430 


Impressions  of  England 

opinion  that  "the  Yankees  can  teach  the  English 
people  a  good  many  things  about  railway  conven- 
iences that  they  have  n't  yet  dreamed  of." 

With  his  musical  ear,  so  sensitive  to  vocal  har- 
mony, he  notes  much  unpleasantness  in  the  English 
speech.  He  says:  — 

"The  English  talk  just  as  if  they  were  Germans! 
So  much  guttural  is  very  unpleasant,  especially  as 
half  the  time  I  can't  understand  them,  and  have 
to  say,  '  I  beg  your  pardon?'  Our  American  enun- 
ciation is  much  pleasanter  to  the  ear." 

Fiske's  plan  was  to  go  from  Chester  to  Liver- 
pool, where  he  was  to  meet  his  sister-in-law,  Miss 
Martha  Brooks,  who  had  been  spending  some  time 
in  Europe,  see  her  aboard  ship  on  her  homeward 
journey,  and  then  to  strike  north  for  Glasgow  and 
Edinburgh,  taking  the  Lake  District  on  the  way. 
But  Hutton,  who  was  also  to  sail  for  America  in  a 
few  days,  induced  Fiske  to  change  his  plan,  to  run 
up  to  London  for  a  few  days  and  to  get  his  first 
impressions  of  London  with  him.  So  they  rushed 
from  Chester  up  to  London  and  took  lodgings  at 
II  Craven  Street,  Strand,  "a  jolly  and  cheap  lodg- 
ing-house taken  straight  from  Dickens's  novels." 
Fiske  found  Hutton  "the  most  delightful  of  travel- 
ling companions.  He  knows  the  economical  ways 
of  doing  things.  We  had  charming,  cosy  break- 
fasts together  in  our  rooms,  and  then  would  sally 
forth  about  town,  and  meet  at  6  P.M.  to  dine  at  some 
French  restaurant  —  and  so  I  have  picked  up  a 


John  Fiske 

good  many  notions  about  London,  and  when  I  get 
back  it  will  seem  homelike. " 

Fiske  found  Miss  Brooks  in  London,  and  to- 
gether they  visited  some  of  the  noted  places  and 
had  several  interesting  walks  about  town.  As  this 
visit  to  London  was  for  provisional  observation 
mainly,  he  did  not  look  up  any  of  the  people  he 
was  desirous  to  see,  and  the  letters  contain  but  a 
few  observations  upon  what  he  saw.  Of  the  chim- 
panzee at  the  Zoological  Gardens  he  remarks  that 
"he  looks  more  like  a  man  than  a  monkey,  and  I 
believe  he  would  be  called  a  man  if  he  could  talk." 
He  got  himself  a  suit  of  clothes  at  Poole's,  the 
famous  tailor,  and  remarks,  "  I  shall  not  patronize 
Poole  any  more;  for  although  the  work  is  all  done 
in  the  finest  style,  I  don't  like  the  cut." 

After  four  days  of  these  preliminary  observations 
in  London,  September  5,  1873,  Fiske,  Miss  Brooks, 
and  Hutton  set  out  for  Liverpool,  with  the  purpose 
of  taking  in  Leamington,  Kenil worth,  Warwick 
Castle,  and  Stratford-on-Avon  by  the  way.  They 
visited  these  intervening  places,  but  Fiske  makes 
no  observations  upon  them  —  he  simply  notes  the 
fact  to  Mrs.  Fiske  that  on  Saturday,  the  6th  of 
September,  "the  ninth  anniversary  of  our  wed- 
ding-day, we  drove  to  Kenilworth,  then  to  War- 
wick Castle,  and  then  to  Stratford-on-Avon." 

On  the  following  Tuesday  he  saw  Miss  Brooks 
and  Hutton  sail  from  Liverpool  for  America,  and 
then  set  out  alone  on  his  trip  to  Scotland  by  way 

432 


The  Lake  District 

of  the  Lake  District,  so  well  known  on  account  of 
its  many  natural  charms  as  well  as  from  its  identi- 
fication with  much  that  is  finest  in  English  litera- 
ture. He  gives  quite  in  detail  his  coaching  and  ho- 
tel experiences  while  passing  through  this  famous 
section  of  Great  Britain's  "  tight  little  island, "  and 
summarizes  his  impressions  of  this  District  and 
of  English  landscape  in  general  to  Mrs.  Fiske,  as 
follows :  — 

"I  had  seen  nine  lakes,  viz.,  Windermere,  Es- 
thwaite  Water,  Coniston  Water,  Brothers  Water, 
tills  Water,  Rydal  Water,  Grasmere,  Thirlmere, 
and  Derwent  Water  — '  some  on  'em  big  and  some 
on  'em  little '  —  and  I  had  acquired  definite  asso- 
ciations with  ten  villages;  and  so  I  thought  the  re- 
mainder would  be  more  of  the  same  kind. 

"The  Lake  country  is  exceedingly  beautiful,  and 
some  of  it  quite  grand;  and  one  can  understand 
why  Wordsworth,  and  Southey,  and  De  Quincey, 
and  others  chose  to  live  there,  more  thoroughly 
away  from  all  civilization  than  one  would  now  be 
in  Tom  Swamp.  But  it  does  n't  bewitch  me  like 
Petersham.  The  only  scenery  that  has  fairly 
thrilled  me  is  that  of  Killarney.  Still  there  was  one 
place  on  the  road  to  Patterdale  so  much  like  Peters- 
ham, that  it  made  me  cry,  for  it  seemed  as  if  the 
basket-wagon  with  you  and  the  little  ones  was 
required  to  make  the  scene  complete  and  comfort- 
able. The  Lake  country  is  more  American  in  ap- 
pearance than  the  other  parts  of  England  which  I 
have  seen.  As  for  English  landscape  in  general, 
it  has  all  the  monotony  of  a  face  which  is  perfect 
in  beauty,  without  any  play  of  expression.  I  say 

433 


John  Fiske 

every  moment,  'How  lovely/  but  it  does  n't  charm 
or  interest  me  one  particle.  Everything  is  deli- 
ciously  clean.  The  roads  are  like  the  drives  in 
Central  Park;  you  never  see  old  tomato-cans,  cut- 
tings of  tin,  piles  of  brush,  etc.,  by  the  road-side; 
every  hedge  is  fresh  and  thrifty,  every  field  is  like 
green  velvet,  every  house  is  picturesquely  and  dur- 
ably built,  the  stone  walls  are  unexceptionable, 
the  trees  are  dotted  about  in  sweet  confusion,  there 
are  flowers  in  all  the  windows,  and  ivy  over  all  the 
walls ;  —  in  short,  it  is  the  cleanest,  happiest,  most 
smiling  landscape  conceivable;  and  the  effect  of 
about  a  hundred  miles  of  it  is  to  weary  the  eye  so 
that  you  are  glad  to  look  away  from  it,  and  read 
your  guide-book  or  the  newspaper. 

"I  still  say,  give  me  New  England  for  scenery. 
I  can  say  that  I  see  things  in  London  that  would 
make  me  like  to  live  there;  but  I  have  n't  seen  any 
rural  part  of  England  which  would  tempt  me  to 
spend  my  days  in  it.  I  still  swear  by  Petersham. " 

He  visited  Furness  Abbey  and  makes  this  note :  — 

11  Furness  Abbey  is  fine  for  massiveness,  but  it  is 
very  inferior  in  architecture  to  Muckross,  and  lacks 
moreover  the  tenderness  of  the  latter.  I  don't  think 
much  of  its  architecture.  There  are  two  styles 
patched  together,  a,nd  they  don't  harmonize." 

Fiske  reached  Edinburgh  Saturday  night,  Sep- 
tember 13,  weary  from  an  all-day's  journey,  and 
fairly  sickened  by  the  disgusting  habits  of  some 
drunken  Scotch  passengers.  The  next  day  was  a 
rainy  Sunday,  and  as  all  active  life  was  suspended 
by  reason  of  religious  faith,  his  first  impressions 

434 


In  Edinburgh 

of  the  Scotch  people  were  far  from  favorable.  Writ- 
ing to  Mrs.  Fiske  in  the  afternoon,  in  the  midst  of 
the  prevailing  gloom,  he  gives  free  expression  to 
his  feelings :  — 

"Such  a  melancholy  frowning  set  of  people  as 
the  Scotchmen,  of  a  Sunday,  you  never  saw.  This 
is  a  land  where  Puritanism  still  holds  sway.  .  .  . 
Asceticism  and  mental  acuteness,  drunkenness  and 
thrift,  somehow  manage  to  get  along  together/' 

But  the  next  day  brought  an  entire  change  of 
scene,  with  a  wholly  different  state  of  mind,  on  his 
part,  and  the  glories  of  Edinburgh  found  a  keen 
appreciator.  It  was  while  under  the  spell  of  this 
fresh  experience  that  he  writes  in  the  following 
strain :  — 

"The  ancient  rhyme  goes:  — 

"'  Yankee  Doodle  came  to  town 

In  his  striped  trowsers, 
Swore  he  could  n't  see  the  town, 
There  were  so  many  houses.' 

"  This  remark  of  the  acute  and  sagacious  Y.  D. 
will  apply  to  most  towns,  but  it  does  n't  apply  to 
Edinburgh.  Here  everything  is  on  top  of  something 
else,  and  wherever  you  are,  you  can  see  a  big  town 
around  you.  Even  when  you  get  down  to  the  bot- 
tom, the  effect  is  not  belied;  for  then  you  look  up 
and  see  another  huge  town  all  around  in  the  sky. 
Never  before  was  such  a  stunning  spread  made 
with  an  equal  amount  of  granite  and  mortar.  First 
the  New  Town  is  built,  in  the  coolest  way,  right 
over  the  roofs  of  the  Old  Town.  And  then  both 

435 


John  Fiske 

Old  and  New  Towns  have  a  way  of  running  into  two- 
storiedness  on  their  own  hook.  At  one  place  I  ac- 
tually found  three  tiers  of  streets  one  above  another, 
and  crossing  each  other  on  superb  arched  bridges, 
while  the  railway  burrowed  away  down  in  the 
basement  below  all  else.  The  effect  is  astonishingly 
magnificent. " 

Then  follows  quite  a  full  account  of  the  day's 
experiences  from  which  we  take  some  extracts:  — 

"This  morning  I  got  up  with  my  cold  about  cured, 
and  the  sun  shone  bright,  and  the  Sunday  being 
over,  the  town  relaxed  its  severe  countenance. 
After  breakfast,  I  started  off  afoot  in  a  vagabond 
way,  without  any  object  except  to  bask  in  the 
glories  of  this  glorious  place,  lit  up  by  one  of  the 
most  gorgeous  September  days  that  was  ever  seen 
since  the  earth  began  to  rotate  on  its  axis.  A  mir- 
aculous atmosphere,  such  as  you  don't  see  six 
times  in  a  whole  lifetime:  a  most  brilliant  sun 
shining  through  the  loveliest,  thinnest  veil  of  mist, 
softening  everything,  obscuring  nothing  —  just  like 
one  of  Turner's  gorgeous  misty  pictures,  you  know 
—  that's  the  way  it  looked.  I  never  got  so  much 
eye  pleasure  in  a  day  before. 

"First  I  walked  (my  brain  running  riot  with 
musical  phrases)  up  the  Calton  Hill,  and  ascended 
Nelson's  monument;  then  I  went  to  Regent's  Ter- 
race to  see  my  Sanskrit  friend  Dr.  Muir  —  but  he 
was  out  of  town;  then  I  pegged  along  to  Holyrood 
Palace  and  saw  the  portraits  of  all  the  Scottish 
kings  —  all  the  bloody,  treacherous  Stuart  tribe  — 
and  the  bed  Queen  Mary  slept  in,  and  all  the 
scene  of  Rizzio's  murder.  .  .  .  Cosy  old  rooms 

436 


In  Edinburgh 

Mrs.  Darnley  had;  I  would  n't  mind  living  in  them 
myself  —  and  a  grand  old  place  it  is  —  hoary  with 
antiquity,  long  before  Queen  Mary  saw  the  light. 
Not  one  of  the  long  line  of  her  Stuart  ancestors 
whose  '  pickerwows '  I  saw  but  has  walked  in  those 
very  rooms.  And  perhaps  it  has  been  the  scene  of 
more  bitter  tears  and  more  atrocious  villainy,  than 
any  other  house  now  standing  in  Europe.  —  By 
the  way,  look  in  the  7th  or  8th  or  9th  volume  of 
Froude's  "  History  of  England"  (I  think  it  is  the 
8th)  and  hunt  up  his  magnificent  description  of  the 
murder  of  Rizzio  and  read  it.  It  all  came  back  to 
me  this  morning,  and  •every  one  of  the  rooms  was 
peopled  for  me  with  living  figures.  You  will  find 
Froude  behind  the  piano,  among  the  histories.  Do 
read  it  first  of  all;  it  is  a  great  piece  of  descriptive 
writing/' 

Then  he  walked  up  the  Canongate,  and  High 
Street,  crossed  the  Waverley  Bridge,  and  roamed 
northward  as  far  as  he  could ;  then  he  turned  and 
roamed  southward,  never  losing  his  way  and  never 
asking  it,  not  even  consulting  the  map  in  his  pocket. 

Fiske  tells  of  going  to  the  Castle,  the  Royal 
Institution,  and  the  National  Gallery,  only  to  find 
them  closed;  and  then,  for  want  of  something  bet- 
ter to  do  he  made  himself  seasick  by  going  to  the 
top  of  Scott's  monument.  While  wandering,  pur- 
poseless, about  the  streets  he  espied  a  "  tram-omni- 
bus" —  a  horse-car —  and  to  use  his  own  words: 

" Happy  thought—  'jerk  the  horse-car!'  J.  Bull 
is  a  sorry  idiot  in  some  things;  but  in  the  horse-car 

437 


John  Fiske 

he  beats  us  Yankees  quite  hollow.  Here  there  are 
seats  on  top  of  the  car  where  you  can  smoke  and 
enjoy  the  view." 

Accordingly  he  took  the  horse-car,  not  knowing 
or  caring  where  it  went,  and  was  taken  through 
streets  he  had  not  seen,  out  into  the  country, 
through  lovely  suburbs,  and  finally  was  brought 
back  through  still  another  part  of  the  town  and 
landed  square  in  front  of  his  hotel. 

He  gives  the  following  incident  as  occurring  dur- 
ing his  stroll  about  town :  — 

"  I  met  a  Highland  shepherd  who  had  never 
been  to  Edinburgh  before,  and  did  n't  know  his  way 
to  the  railway  station.  I  had  n't  the  remotest  idea, 
but  here  was  a  definite  object  to  walk  for,  and  so 
I  volunteered  and  led  him  along  with  his  dog.  He 
asked  so  many  questions  that  I  was  obliged  to  own 
that  I  was  an  American,  and  a  stranger  in  Edin- 
burgh. By  this  time  we  had  got  close  to  the  station 
and  great  was  his  astonishment  —  '  Ne  'er  been  in 
Edinboro'  afore,  mon;  weel,  ye  maun  ha'  hurd  it 
verra  weel  descraibed ! ' 

And  thus,  after  an  eight  hours'  walk  and  a  two 
hours'  horse-car  ride,  he  found  himself  "ripe  for 
dinner";  and  at  9.30  ''ripe  for  bed,  after  a  day 
never  once  to  be  forgotten." 

The  next  morning  Fiske  set  out  for  a  week's  trip 
to  the  Scotch  Highlands  by  way  of  Stirling.  Of 
this  trip  he  gives  a  full  account  to  Mrs.  Fiske  in  a 
letter  dated  at  Inverness,  September  21,  1873.  He 
begins  as  follows:  — 

438 


The  Scotch  Highlands 

"What  a  week  this  has  been!  I  came  to  see 
mountains  and  lakes,  and  by  Jove,  I  have  seen 
mountains  and  lakes,  and  felt  'em,  I  might  say,  in 
various  ways. —  Ben  Ledi,  Ben  A'an,  Ben  Venue, 
Ben  Lomond,  Ben  Cruachan,  Ben  Nevis,  and  I 
know  not  how  many  more  of  the  Benjamin  family — 
and  as  for  the  lakes  they  are  like  the  long  list  of 
one's  early  loves,  and  which  is  the  loveliest,  I 
thought  I  knew  when  I  had  only  seen  the  first  one, 
but  now  I  give  it  up.  I  have  sailed  over  the  fol- 
lowing—  Lochs  Katrine,  Lomond,  Fyne,  Linnhe, 
Leven  Lochy,  Oich  and  Ness;  and  I  have  walked 
or  ridden  by  the  side  of  Lochs  Vennachar  Achray, 
Leven,  Etive,  Awe,  Tullich,  Lydoch,  and  Eil.  A 
good  week's  work!  !  For  simple  loveliness  give  me 
Loch  Katrine,  for  beauty  and  grandeur,  Loch  Lo- 
mond, for  magnificence,  Loch  Awe,  for  awful  sub- 
limity, Loch  Linnhe." 

It  can  be  well  understood  that  this  letter  is  one  of 
great  interest.  Fiske's  observations,  his  emotions 
are  depicted  so  simply,  yet  so  graphically,  that 
the  reader  fairly  feels  that  he  is  making  the  jour- 
ney himself.  A  few  extracts  must  suffice  to  give 
an  idea  of  his  keen  susceptibility  to  the  beauty  and 
sublimity  of  nature,  so  opulently  conjoined,  in 
this  region  consecrated  as  it  were  to  human  in- 
terest by  Scotch  history,  poetry  and  romance: — 

Stirling  Castle.  "I  went  all  over  the  castle,  from 
the  ramparts  of  which  there  is  one  of  the  most 
magnificent  views  to  be  had  on  this  planet.  The 
whole  Benjamin  family  in  the  distance;  and  an 
immense  plain  at  your  feet,  through  which  winds 

439 


John  Fiske 

the  silvery  Forth.  In  the  midst  of  this  plain  the 
rock  of  Stirling  rises  sheer  into  cloudland,  and 
on  the  very  crest  of  this  beetling  eminence  stands 
the  castle.  Below  me  on  the  right  lay  the  battle- 
field of  Stirling  Bridge,  where  Wallace  defeated 
the  English  in  1297  —  so  that  they  had  to  quit 
the  castle.  A  little  farther  on  are  the  ruins  of  Cam- 
buskenneth  Abbey.  To  the  left  is  Wallace's  Tower, 
and  beyond  that  the  battlefield  of  Bannockburn, 
where  Bruce  defeated  the  English  in  1314.  ... 
Every  portion  of  the  field  was  entirely  within  view 
—  and  a  soldier  of  the  garrison  pointed  out  to  me 
all  the  strategic  points  so  that  the  whole  battle 
came  back  to  my  mind  with  great  vividness.  Then 
I  went  into  the  so-called  Douglas  room,  where 
James  II  basely  murdered  William,  Earl  of  Doug- 
las, after  inviting  him  to  an  interview,  and  furnish- 
ing him  with  a  safe  conduct —  a  crime  which  was 
regarded  with  abhorrence  even  in  those  fiendish 
times.  I  stood  in  the  little  bay  window  where  the 
king  stabbed  him,  and  imagined  how  the  servants 
came  in  from  the  little  ante-room  and  threw  the 
body  out  of  the  window  while  others  below  dug  a 
grave  in  the  garden  and  buried  the  great  Earl  like 
a  dog." 

The  Trossachs.  "At  Callander  I  took  the  top  of 
a  coach  for  a  superb  ride  of  nine  miles  past  Lochs 
Vennachar  and  Achray,  with  Ben  Ledi  and  other 
Bens  towering  on  the  right.  It  was  about  I  o'clock 
when  we  reached  the  Trossach's  Hotel,  which  is 
famed  for  its  cold  weal  pie  (said  Mr.  Weller,  etc.); 
and  after  a  rather  exhaustive  experiment  upon  it, 
I  can  say  it  well  deserves  its  reputation." 

Loch  Lomond.  ' '  The  scenery  about  Loch  Lomond , 


440 


The  Scotch  Highlands 

for  combined  grandeur  and  sweetness  surpasses 
anything  else  which  I  have  ever  seen.  There  is  noth- 
ing else  here  which  a  painter  would  set  before  it, 
though  there  is  other  scenery  equally  impressive 
in  a  different  way." 

Loch  Linnhe.  "Leaving  the  Bay  of  Oban,  the 
steamer  entered  Loch  Linnhe  towards  sunset.  This 
is  a  very  large  lake  hemmed  in  by  giant  mountains 
without  a  trace  of  vegetation,  and  the  effect  is  aw- 
fully sublime.  It  was  the  greatest  sight  I  ever  saw 
—  fairly  overpowering  in  its  weird  solemnity.  The 
lake  was  rough,  and  its  water  inky  black,  with 
savagely  laughing  white  crests.  I  felt  as  if  in  the 
black  domains  of  some  terrible  enchanter." 

An  Experience  at  Ballachulish.  "After  26  miles 
of  Loch  Linnhe,  we  entered  by  twilight  the  beau- 
tiful Loch  Leven,  and  stopped  at  Ballachulish, 
where  I  put  up  at  the  jolliest  inn  that  I  have  found 
in  Great  Britain.  There  was  an  Englishman  there 
who  looked  the  very  image  of  Manton  Marble,  so 
that  I  fell  in  love  with  him  at  once,  and  when  he 
opened  his  mouth,  it  was  Marble's  voice  that  came 
out  of  it.  Him  I  will  call  M.  and  his  wife  was 
of  similar  style  to  Mrs.  Edwards;  and  they  both 
looked  at  me  ever  so  much,  and  by  and  bye  we 
spake  together,  and  they  were  cultivated  and  at- 
tractive people.  M.  said  I  would  n't  see  anything 
of  Glencoe  in  such  a  rain,  but  I  said  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  to  despise  rain  and  flood,  and  so  off 
we  started.  Rain?  Floods?  Far  from  it.  Hail- 
stones? By  no  means.  It  rained  as  if  some  arch- 
angel had  accidentally  tipped  over  the  biggest 
water-butt  in  heaven,  and  sent  it  all  down  onto  us 
4  to  onct ' ;  it  did  n't  come  in  drops  —  the  air  was 


441 


John  Fiske 

nothing  but  solid  water,  and  we  were  like  fishes 
at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  the  floods  ran  across 
the  road  so  profusely  that  I  wondered  they  did  n't 
float  the  coach,  and  wash  us  all  into  Loch  Leven. 
The  tempest  was  such  that  the  driver  turned  back 
before  we  had  got  to  the  heart  of  the  glen,  and 
about  noon  we  returned  to  the  inn,  where  I  sent 
my  boots  and  my  ulster  to  the  kitchen  to  be  dried, 
and  went  upstairs  and  changed  clothes,  and  went 
down  into  the  parlour,  where  there  was  a  pretty 
good  piano,  and  began  to  play  with  all  the  zest 
of  a  chap  that  has  been  famished  for  a  piano  for 
weeks  and  weeks.  I  began  on  the  'Squitch'  and 
extemporised  several  variations  on  it,  and  was  go- 
ing along  with  great  glory  when  I  looked  up  and 
saw  Mrs.  M.  seated  in  the  bay-window  with  hood 
and  water-proof  on,  looking  intently  at  me,  with 
tears  on  her  cheeks,  and  then  I  became  aware 
that  there  were  a  dozen  people  in  the  room.  When 
I  had  finished  there  was  a  grand  clapping  of  hands ; 
and  M.  came  lip  and  said  that  was  grand,  and  could 
I  give  'em  a  dose  of  Mendelssohn?  It  was  one  of 
my  good  days,  when  I  can  get  the  cantabile  out  of 
a  piano,  and  I  played  considerable  of  Mendelssohn, 
Beethoven,  and  Chopin,  with  genuine  applause 
from  all  present;  and  then  we  all  became  very 
sociable,  and  passed  a  charming  afternoon  in  con- 
versation and  games,  and  dined  together  like  a 
family  party." 

The  Pass  of  Glencoe,  and  the  way  thither.  "It 
was  a  superb  morning,  and  at  8  I  started  on  top  of 
coach  for  Tyndrum,  through  one  of  the  grandest 
roads  in  Scotland.  We  coasted  along  the  banks  of 
Loch  Etive,  passed  the  ruined  Dunstaffnage  Castle, 

442 


The  Scotch  Highlands 

an  old  stronghold  of  the  Campbells,  passed  the 
Brigg  of  Awe,  —  the  scene  of  Scott's  story  of  the 
'  Highland  Widow/  —  went  through  the  wild  pass 
of  Brander,  and  approached  the  head  of  Loch  Awe. 
Here  several  of  us  got  down  and  walked  two  miles, 
while  the  coaches  toiled  up  an  ascending  grade. 
It  was  a  lovely  walk.  For  magnificent  scenery  of 
the  true  New  England  type,  Loch  Awe  surpasses 
anything  I  have  seen! 

"Resuming  the  coach,  we  passed  through  lovely 
Glenorchy,  and  then  came  upon  a  long  stretch  of 
very  desolate  moorland,  with  the  giant  Ben  Crua- 
chan  in  the  background.  Here  some  of  us  crossed 
a  bye-path  over  steep  moorlands,  overgrown  with 
heather,  while  the  coach  proceeded  along  the  tor- 
tuous main  road.  I  enclose  a  sprig  of  the  heather 
which  I  plucked  on  this  lonely  spot.  Here  the  scen- 
ery is  not  at  all  like  anything  you  ever  saw  in  New 
England.  On  every  hand  are  steep  mountains, 
rising  almost  perpendicularly,  without  one  solitary 
tree  to  be  seen  —  nothing  but  heather.  The  lone- 
liness of  the  scene  is  beyond  description.  It  is  '  like 
a  lone  land  where  no  man  comes  or  hath  come 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world/  Everywhere 
barrenness,  everywhere  blank  desolation.  After  a 
while  we  reached  Tyndrum,  which  consists  of  one 
granite  hotel  superbly  built  in  the  pointed  Norman 
style,  and  about  two  dozen  nasty  shanties.  Here 
I  changed  coaches,  and  bore  toward  Glencoe.  We 
passed  pretty  Loch  Tullich,  and  halted  at  Invero- 
ren,  where  I  tried  to  see  how  much  cold  mutton  I 
could  dispose  of  in  ten  minutes;  and  then  we  passed 
Loch  Lydoch,  which  is  not  especially  interesting, 
and  then  our  road  lay  through  utter  desolation  — 


443 


John  Fiske 

not  a  tree,  not  a  house,  nothing  but  mighty  hills 
rising  on  every  hand  like  icebergs  in  the  midst  of  the 
sea.  Towards  dusk  we  entered  the  pass  of  Glen- 
coe,  where  the  scenery  becomes  terribly  sublime; 
even  the  heather  appears  no  longer,  the  great 
masses  of  jagged  rock  rise  three  thousand  feet  sheer 
up  each  side  the  narrow  glen  and  stand  like  grim 
giants  guarding  some  unearthly  citadel.  Here  in 
February,  1692,  about  forty  Macdonalds  were 
foully  and  cruelly  massacred  by  a  body  of  English 
troops  under  Col.  Campbell  of  Glenlyon,  at  the  in- 
stigation of  Sir  John  Dalrymple  and  the  Earl  of 
Breadalbane,  who  had  a  grudge  against  the  Mac- 
jdonalds.  It  was  the  most  perfidious  and  atrocious 
.thing,  I  think,  that  ever  happened  in  Scotland, 
'which  is  indeed  a  land  of  horrors. " 

To  Inverness  through  the  Caledonian  Canal.  "We 
were  now  on  the  famous  *  Caledonian  Canal/  which 
it  is  thus,  and  this  is  the  reason  of  this  thusness. 
Loch  Linnhe,  as  the  map  will  show  you,  commun- 
icates directly  with  the  Bay  of  Oban.  From  Loch 
Linnhe,  you  pass  into  Loch  Eil,  along  the  banks 
of  which  we  posted  Friday  night  in  our  wagonet 
seeing  just  enough  to  see  that  we  were  losing  a  great 
deal.  At  the  head  of  Loch  Eil  stands  the  village  of 
Banavie.  Now  between  Banavie  and  Inverness, 
there  lie  three  magnificent  lakes — Loch  Lochy, 
Loch  Oich  and  Loch  Ness — and  the  art  of  man  has 
joined  these  lakes  with  each  other,  and  with  Loch 
Eil  at  one  end,  and  with  the  Moray  Firth  at  the 
other,  by  a  deep  canal,  so  that  an  ocean  steamer 
can  go  through  the  very  heart  of  the  Highlands 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  German  Ocean.  Only  as 
some  of  these  lakes  lie  high  up  in  the  mountains, 


444 


The  Scotch  Highlands 

your  steamer  has  to  be  hoisted  up  from  one  lake 
to  another  by  means  of  locks,  and  then  let  down 
again.  It  so  happened  yesterday  that  it  was  a  su- 
perb day,  bitter  cold,  with  a  very  brilliant  sun  and 
no  rain  at  all,  —  being  the  third  rainless  day  since 
I  landed  at  Queens  town.  You  can  perhaps  imag- 
ine how  perfectly  delightful  the  voyage  was.  Part 
of  the  time  in  a  canal  so  narrow  that  we  seemed  to 
be  sailing  on  land  right  between  the  most  beauti- 
ful hills;  part  of  the  time  ploughing  through  wild 
lakes  bordered  with  forests  of  Scotch  fir.  It  was 
more  fairy  like  than  anything  else  I  have  seen. 
First  we  passed  by  Ben  Nevis,  biggest  of  the  Ben- 
jamins, his  hoary  pate  covered  with  snow;  then  we 
sailed  through  Loch  Lochy,  which  is  sublime  like 
Loch  Linnhe,  only  less  so;  then  we  climbed  into 
the  lofty  Loch  Oich,  away  up  in  the  mountains, 
and  passed  through  exquisite  wooded  scenery,  like 
that  of  Loch  Katrine,  only  less  so.  Then  we  were 
lowered  down  through  seven  locks,  during  which 
operation  many  of  us  got  'out  and  took  a  walk. 
Our  steerage  passengers  consisted  of  a  great  flock 
of  sheep  en  route  for  Inverness  to  be  slain  for  mut- 
ton —  a  circumstance  which  caused  Paine's  great 
chorus  — '  He  was  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaugh- 
ter, yet  he  opened  not  his  mouth '  —  to  run  in  my 
head  all  day.  —  No  joke  about  it;  such  are  the 
queer  ways  in  which  big  and  little  ideas  tie  them- 
selves together.  One  of  these  sheep  had  evidently 
made  up  his  mind  to  commit  suicide,  for  he  jumped 
overboard  in  one  of  the  locks,  and  was  yanked  up 
and  rescued  by  a  shepherd's  hook  inserted  under 
one  of  his  horns.  He  jumped  overboard  again,  and 
was  rescued  by  a  rope,  which  was  skilfully  lassoed 


445 


John  Fiske 

about  his  neck,  though  I  should  have  thought  it 
would  have  strangled  him.  Poor  sheep!  He  must 
have  been  very  desperate;  for  while  we  were  in  the 
last  lock,  he  tried  it  again;  and  before  he  could  be 
rescued  the  steamer  sort  of  rubbed  against  the  wall 
of  the  lock  and  crushed  him.  Exit  sheep  from  this 
vale  of  tears! 

"Then  we  entered  Loch  Ness  which  is  twenty- 
six  miles  long  and  only  a  mile  and  a  quarter  in  width, 
so  that  it  seems  like  a  river.  It  is  more  than  1000 
feet  deep.  The  scenery  on  it  is  very  much  like  that 
of  the  Hudson  River  near  West  Point.  At  Foyers 
Pier  we  got  out  and  walked  a  mile  uphill  to  see  the 
Fall  of  Foyers  tumbling  down  200  feet  into  a  wild 
chasm,  while  the  steamer  waited  for  us.  At  6  P.M. 
(of  a  Saturday)  we  reached  Inverness,  the  capital 
of  the  Highlands,  which  is  very  likely  the  most 
northerly  point  I  shall  ever  reach." 

Fiske  was  obliged  to  remain  at  Inverness  until 
Monday  morning,  and  he  had  an  attack  of  real 
homesickness,  as  in  his  loneliness  he  pictured  in 
his  imagination  his  little  home  group  gathered  in 
the  "obally"  at  Cambridge.  He  tells  with  what 
eagerness  he  is  looking  forward  to  getting  a  batch 
of  letters  at  Edinburgh  on  the  morrow,  and  there 
is  a  touch  of  tender  pathos  in  his  remark,  "  I  hope 
that  among  them  will  be  the  'pickerwow'  of  the 
basket-wagon  and  its  precious  freight."  He  found 
occupation,  during  what  he  calls  "this  vile  Scotch 
Sunday,"  in  writing  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Fiske,  from 
which  the  foregoing  extracts  are  taken  —  it  is  a 
letter  of  twenty-four  closely  written  pages,  care- 

446 


In  Edinburgh 

fully  punctuated  as  to  its  meaning,  and  without  a 
single  erasure  or  change  of  word. 

On  Monday,  September  22,  1873,  Fiske  left  In- 
verness, by  rail  for  Edinburgh.  The  weather  was 
fine,  and  he  found  the  scenery  delightful  —  "ex- 
ceedingly like  Petersham. "  He  remained  in  Edin- 
burgh four  days  "and  got  more  in  love  with  the 
city  than  ever/'  He  visited  the  castle,  which  he 
thought  one  of  the  grandest  places  he  ever  saw  — 
standing  on  a  beetling  eminence  more  steep  than 
that  of  Stirling.  He  wondered  how  the  Earl  of 
Murray  in  1313,  with  thirty  picked  men,  could 
have  climbed  clean  up  the  side,  and  captured  it. 
He  went  to  the  Advocate's  Library,  about  the  size 
of  the  Boston  Public  Library,  and  thought  that  as 
to  cataloguing  they  were  way  back  in  the  Dark 
Ages  as  compared  with  Harvard.  Next  he  went 
to  the  National  Gallery,  where  he  found  "many 
splendid  pictures  by  Rubens,  Salvator  Rosa,  Rem- 
brandt, Titian,  Paul  Veronese,  Giorgione,  Murillo, 
etc.,  and  lots  of  English  and  Scottish  masters." 
He  says,  "I  staid  there  ever  so  long,  and  was  so 
stupefied  with  delight,  that  going  out  of  doors 
seemed  like  waking  up  into  a  dull  every-day  world 
again." 

This  was  Fiske's  first  experience  with  a  large 
collection  of  great  masterpieces  of  representative 
art,  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that  his  appreciation 
strikes  true  in  regard  to  them  —  he  is  overpow- 
ered by  them. 

447 


John  Fiske 

Wednesday  was  spent  in  a  futile  attempt  to  find 
an  uncle  of  his  friend  Hutton,  by  an  excursion  to  St. 
Andrews.  He  partly  compensated  himself  by  visit- 
ing the  ruins  of  the  cathedral  and  the  castle  which 
brought  to  mind  the  "eminent  virtues  "  as  well 
as  "the  somewhat  acrid  and  irreverent  temper " 
of  John  Knox.  He  also  found  much  to  interest  him 
in  the  monument  to  the  martyrs  Wishart  and  his 
four  associates. 

Thursday  he  says :  — 

"  I  spent  a  long  time  in  the  University  Library  — 
about  the  same  size  as  ours  —  and  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  meet  the  librarian  of  the  Glasgow  Univer- 
sity. Had  a  long  talk  with  the  two  librarians.  The 
more  I  see  of  these  things,  the  more  I  appreciate 
the  greatness  of  what  Ezra  Abbot  has  done"  (for 
the  Harvard  Library). 

At  the  library  he  found  that  his  friend  Dr.  Muir 
was  not  away,  but  had  moved  out  to  Morning- 
side,  one  of  the  suburbs.  Accordingly  in  the  after- 
noon he  rode  out  and  called.  Dr.  Muir  was  out. 
He  left  his  card  and  walked  back  to  the  city. 

Friday  he  went  to  Melrose  Abbey,  which  he  says 
"is  a  superb  ruin,  worthy  of  all  that  has  been  said 
about  it."  Then  he  drove  to  Abbotsford.  His  com- 
ments upon  this  shrine  for  all  lovers  of  true  romance 
are  brief :  — 

"Tell  you  what,  my  dear,  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
library  is  a  rouser.  The  ceiling  is  a  beautiful 
specimen  of  oak  carving.  The  house  is  a  regular 

448 


In  Edinburgh 

curiosity  shop,~and  I  saw  so  much  that  I  will  not 
try  to  tell  anything  about  it." 

But  Fiske's  last  experience  in  Edinburgh  was  — 
to  himself  at  least — the  most  interesting  of  all. 
Dr.  Muir  promptly  acknowledged  his  call  by  in- 
viting him  to  dinner  Friday  evening.  What  fol- 
lowed is  given  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Fiske:  — 

"On  returning  from  Melrose,  I  had  just  time  to 
get  out  to  his  lovely  villa  before  dinner.  He  is  a 
very  old  bachelor  and  his  niece  Mrs.  Lowe  keeps 
house  for  him.  He  had  invited  to  meet  me  Dr. 
Findlater,  one  of  the  first  philologists  in  Scotland, 
Dr.  Aufrecht  who  is  one  of  the  greatest  Sanskrit 
scholars  in  the  world,  and  who  published  many 
years  ago  a  great  work  on  the  Umbrian  language. 
I  was  at  first  overwhelmed  at  meeting  so  much 
erudition,  all  at  once,  and  was  afraid  I  should  ap- 
pear to  be  a fool.  But  I  got  along  very  well. 

They  all  knew  the  Myth-book.  Dr.  Muir  said  it 
was  '  the  finest  specimen  of  lucid  exposition  he  had 
ever  seen  in  his  life ' ;  and  he  singled  out  one  or  two 
of  my  own  particular  points  in  a  way  that  showed 
that  he  understood  both  their  merit  and  their 
novelty.  The  others  appeared  to  agree  with  him. 
Three  more  modest  men,  and  three  more  consum- 
mate gentlemen,  I  never  met.  .  .  .  The  dinner 
was  delicious,  with  some  choice  wines  and  the  con- 
versation was  ferociously  learned.  We  discussed 
the  Sankhya  philosophy,  and  all  sorts  of  stuff,  and 
Mrs.  Lowe,  having  lived  in  India,  also  enjoyed  it, 
or  seemed  to.  I  staid  till  after  horse  cars  were 
over,  and  then  Dr.  Muir  walked  part  way  back  to 
town  with  me." 

449 


John  Fiske 

The  next  morning  he  left  Edinburgh  in  a  state  of 
mind  very  different  from  that  in  which  he  entered 
the  town  a  fortnight  before.  He  writes:  — 

"  I  left  Scotland  almost  tearfully,  after  two  weeks 
of  such  exuberant  happiness,  as  is  rarely  experi- 
enced this  side  of  heaven." 

On  his  way  to  London  Fiske  stopped  at  the 
cathedral  towns  of  York,  Lincoln,  Boston,  Peter- 
borough, Ely,  and  Norwich,  and  also  at  Ipswich 
and  Cambridge,  and  in  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Fiske 
we  have  quite  full  records  of  his  impressions  of  the 
cathedrals  of  Boston  and  of  Cambridge.  The  few 
extracts  we  can  take  from  these  deeply  interesting 
letters  show  a  mind  as  keenly  appreciative  of  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  man's  constructive  arts  as 
it  was  responsive  to  the  beauty  and  sublimity  of 
nature.  The  cathedrals  gave  him  his  first  impres- 
sions of  grand  constructive  architecture,  and  how 
he  felt  in  the  presence  of  these  sublime  creations 
he  tells  in  many  passages  in  the  letters.  Writing 
from  York,  he  says :  — 

4 '  After  writing  some '  tezzletelts '  I  went  out  again 
and  attended  vespers  in  the  cathedral.  This,  you 
know,  is  one  of  the  largest  and  grandest  churches 
in  the  world.  I  believe  it  is  the  largest  in  England. 
The  one  at  Ely  is  longer,  but  this  beats  it  in  area. 
It  is  a  truly  magnificent  building  —  lovely  and 
awful,  solemn  and  sweet.  It  is  like  music  to  be  in 
it,  and  if  you  go  in  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  you  hear 
music  too.  The  organ  looks  small  —  probably  be- 

450 


Visits  Cathedral  Towns 

cause  it  is  in  such  an  enormous  place;  but  when  it 
opens  its  mouth,  there  issue  forth  such  stupendous 
volumes  of  sound  as  take  your  soul  right  off  its 
feet  and  float  it  up,  away  up,  among  the  dim 
arches  overhead.  I  never  felt  so  full  of  inspiration 
as  when  the  people  were  going  out  and  the  whole 
vast  space  was  fairly  shaking  and  trembling  with 
harmony,  as  the  organist  worked  up  to  the  tremen- 
dous fortissimo  climax  of  some  ancient  fugue.  This 
alone  was  worth  the  whole  voyage  across  the  At- 
lantic —  and  the  window-tracing  is  absolutely 
miraculous.  I  loafed  around  entranced  till  I  got 
'kicked  out,'  so  to  speak.  One  might  spend  a 
month  in  this  holy  place.  .  .  .  They  are  always 
tinkering  it,  to  keep  it  fresh  and  vigorous;  and  in- 
deed are  repairing  it  now  in  one  corner.  But  the 
finest  windows  are  just  as  they  were  in  the  thir- 
teenth century. " 

He  sums  up  his  cathedral  impressions  thus: — 

"  I  have  every  reason  to  regard  this  tour  among 
the  cathedrals  as  a  great  success.  If  there  is  any- 
thing in  England  worth  seeing,  it  is  these  gigantic 
and  exquisite  buildings.  The  sensation  you  get 
when  inside  of  one  is  something  that  cannot  be 
described  —  you  must  feel  it  yourself.  I  have  now 
seen  eight  altogether,  viz.,  Chester,  Carlisle,  Dur- 
ham, York,  Lincoln,  Peterborough,  Ely  and  Nor- 
wich. Of  these  the  first  two  are  not  especially  grand, 
though  the  east  window  of  Carlisle  is  considered 
the  finest  stained  window  in  the  world.  Durham, 
I  only  saw  the  outside  of  and  that  is  exceedingly 
magnificent.  Norwich  is  fine  but  inferior  to  Lincoln 
and  Peterborough.  York  is  considered  the  grand- 

45i 


John  Fiske 

est,  but  I  think  Ely  rivals  it.  Its  length  is  stupen- 
dous, and  you  get  the  full  effect  of  this  because  the 
screen  between  the  choir  and  the  nave  is  of  open 
work.  Instead  of  a  plain  lantern  in  the  centre  there 
is  a  Gothic  dome  (the  only  one  in  the  world)  the 
effect  of  which  is  incredibly  grand.  As  you  look 
slantwise  across  this  dome,  taking  in  at  one  view 
the  entire  north  transept  with  parts  of  the  nave 
and  choir —  the  effect  is  said  to  be  unsurpassed 
by  any  other  architectural  effect  in  Europe.  The 
finish  of  the  interior  (the  carvings,  etc.)  is  far  more 
elaborate  than  that  of  the  other  English  cathe- 
drals. It  would  take  a  month  to  drink  in  the  effect 
of  all  the  curious  carvings.  At  the  east  end  of  the 
choir,  there  is  a  superb  shrine  of  carved  marble, 
exhibiting  six  scenes  from  Christ's  Passion  —  a 
marvellous  specimen  of  sculpture,  so  exquisitely 
done  that  you  could  study  it  with  a  microscope  and 
find  it  perfect:  —  still  there  are  scores  of  figures, 
over  a  hundred  I  should  say,  in  these  six  scenes. 
The  whole  is  set  in  a  frame-work  of  mosaics  of 
precious  stones  —  onyx  and  jasper,  and  lapis  lazuli, 
etc.  .  .  .  The  building  was  terribly  defaced  by  the 
Puritans  who  smashed  280  statues  in  one  of  the 
chapels  alone,  and  broke  every  pane  of  glass  in 
the  church.  ...  At  Lincoln,  they  tore  up  all  the 
oak  carvings  in  the  choir,  and  substituted  plain 
church  pews  and  the  effect  of  these  in  contrast  with 
the  grand  Gothic  pillars  is  odd  enough.  Fortu- 
nately at  Ely,  they  left  the  oak  carved  seats  and 
stalls,  and  they  are  very  wonderful.  ...  I  have 
learned  a  great  deal  about  Gothic  architecture 
since  Sunday,  compared  to  the  little  I  knew  before 
from  books.  There  is  nothing  like  seeing  things.1' 


452 


At  Ipswich 

When  Fiske  had  finished  his  cathedral  observa- 
tions at  Ely,  although  in  great  haste  to  reach  Lon- 
don, being  in  the  vicinity  of  Ipswich  he  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  to  spend  a  night  at  the  Great 
White  Horse  Inn,  made  forever  memorable  in  Eng- 
lish literature  by  Dickens,  as  the  house  where  Mr. 
Pickwick  had  the  romantic  adventure  with  the 
lady  in  yellow  curl-papers.  From  this  inn  he  writes 
his  cathedral  impressions  just  quoted,  and  appends 
the  following  brief  account  of  the  inn  itself:  — 

"This  old  tavern  where  I  am  now  writing  was 
famous  long  before  Dickens  made  it  immortal.  It 
has  been  standing  here  since  thirteenth  century, 
and  has  been  the  Great  White  Horse  Inn  all  that 
time.  It  is  a  very  ancient  building  with  a  paved 
court  yard,  and  trees  in  the  middle.  It  is  the 
most  picturesque  tavern  I  have  ever  seen,  and  is 
alone  worth  the  short  journey  to  Ipswich.  The 
house  is  so  crooked  I  don't  wonder  old  Pickwick 
lost  his  way  in  it.  Dickens  often  stopped  here,  and 
there  was  once  a  l  boots '  named  Sam  Weller.  The 
cooking  is  very  good,  and  my  ancient  brass  bed- 
stead with  its  fat  feather  bed  is  the  most  comfort- 
able affair  I  ever  slept  on.  We  must  give  old 
England  the  first  prize  for  home  like  and  comfort- 
able hotels,  though  as  far  as  railroad  travelling  goes, 
I  think  no  language  can  do  justice  to  the  intense 
feeling  of  contempt  for  the  British  intellect  with 
which  it  inspires  me.  Anything  more  heathenish 
than  an  English  railway  train  I  have  never  seen. 
And  they  are  slower  than  snails.  That  50  miles  an 
hour  business  is  all  a  myth,  except  on  the  Irish 
mail  and  one  or  two  other  trains.  Mostly  they 

453 


John  Fiske 

don't  make  over  eighteen  miles  an  hour;  and  they 
jolt  equal  to  a  horse-car  off  the  track.  And  they 
are  always,  without  any  exception,  30  minutes  be- 
hind time." 

From  Ipswich  Fiske  went  to  Cambridge,  where 
he  spent  two  days  of  rare  intellectual  enjoyment 
in  visiting  various  points  of  interest  in  the  uni- 
versity. He  first  called  at  the  library,  and  intro- 
duced himself  to  Mr.  Bradshaw,  the  chief  librarian. 
Mr.  Bradshaw  received  him  with  great  cordiality, 
took  him  all  over  the  library  containing  300,000 
volumes,  and  explained  very  fully  their  system  of 
cataloguing,  "wherein,"  he  says,  "I  maintain  that 
Ezra  Abbot  has  beaten  them  out  of  sight." 

Among  the  curiosities  in  the  library,  the  tele- 
scope invented  by  Newton  and  used  by  him  in  his 
researches  greatly  interested  Fiske.  He  says :  — 

"It  looks  as  much  like  our  Harvard  telescope 
as  a  bark  canoe  looks  like  the  steamer  Olympus. 
The  greater  the  wonder  at  what  he  accomplished. 
I  never  felt  more  like  echoing  the  sentiment  en- 
graved on  the  pedestal  of  his  statue  in  Trinity 
Chapel  — 

1  Isaacus  Newton 
Qui  humanum  genus  ingenio  superavit.' " 

After  a  delightful  forenoon  together  Fiske  was 
taken  by  Mr.  Bradshaw  to  the  latter's  rooms  in 
King's  College  for  luncheon.  Of  this  courtesy 
Fiske  writes  to  Mrs.  Fiske  as  follows :  — 

"Such  luxurious  college  rooms  I  never  saw.   The 

454 


In  Cambridge 

librarian  is  a  senior  Fellow  of  the  college,  has  a 
man-servant  of  his  own  and  lives  like  a  nabob. 
We  lunched  on  mutton-pie  deliciously  cooked, 
sweet  bread  and  butter  and  celestial  beer!  There 
was  a  piano,  also  fine '  pickerwows,'  bustuettes,  and 
everything  jolly.  He  had  seen  Stubby  Child  quite 
recently.  He  is  rather  a  swell  chap;  quite  a  Don, 
you  know;  and  perhaps  more  swell  than  profound, 
but  very  satisfactory  in  his  good-breeding  and 
kindliness  of  manner.'' 

Fiske  explored  the  buildings  and  grounds  of 
several  of  the  colleges  —  King's,  Trinity,  St.  John's, 
Corpus  Christi,  Pembroke,  St.  Peter's,  etc.,  and 
he  writes :  — 

"The  buildings  and  grounds  here  so  far  surpass 
what  we  have  got  at  Harvard,  that  there  is  no  use 
in  talking  of  them  on  the  same  day." 

He  left  Cambridge  for  London  Saturday,  Octo- 
ber 4,  1873,  with  the  most  delightful  impressions 
floating  in  his  mind  of  the  whole  university,  form- 
ing in  his  imagination  the  fore-front  of  a  perspec- 
tive of  the  seventy-four  towns  and  villages  with 
which  he  had  so  recently  established  associations. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

IN  LONDON  AGAIN — TAKES  ROOMS  NEAR  BRITISH 
MUSEUM  —  CORDIALLY  RECEIVED  BY  SPENCER 
AND  OTHER  EVOLUTIONISTS  —  ARRANGES  FOR 
PUBLICATION  OF  HIS  BOOK — DISCUSSIONS  WITH 
SPENCER  AND  OTHERS  —  RELIGIOUS  IMPLICA- 
TIONS OF  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION — PERSONAL 
SKETCHES  OF  SPENCER,  DARWIN,  LEWES,  GEORGE 
ELIOT,  HUXLEY,  LYELL 

1873 

FISKE'S  delight  in  getting  back  to  London  was 
something  like  what  he  was  wont  to  feel  in  ap- 
proaching Petersham,  only  as  he  says  "less  so." 
He  was  in  great  spirits.  He  writes:  "  All  these  fine 
things  I  have  seen  have  put  fresh  blood  into  my 
veins.  I  feel  so  wide  awake  and  full  of  vim  as  I 
have  n't  felt  before  since  the  days  when  we  first 
moved  to  Cambridge. " 

-  His  first  thought  was  to  arrange  for  the  publi- 
cation of  his  book,  and  to  this  end  he  desired  to 
consult  Herbert  Spencer  first  of  all.  Accordingly, 
Sunday,  October  5,  1873,  the  next  day  after  his  ar- 
rival, he  walked  out  to  Bayswater,  near  the  farther 
end  of  Hyde  Park,  Spencer's  town  residence,  but 
only  to  find  that  he  was  away  for  a  few  days.  While 
waiting  his  return,  Fiske  called  upon  William  Ral- 
ston, an  eminent  Russian  scholar,  and  assistant 
librarian  at  the  British  Museum.  Fiske  and  Ral- 

456 


In  London 

ston  at  once  took  a  strong  liking  for  each  other,  and 
by  Ralston's  advice  Fiske  took  lodgings  opposite 
the  museum  at  67  Great  Russell  Street.  In  the 
museum  itself  he  was  given  every  facility  for  carry- 
ing on  his  work.  He  gives  the  following  description 
of  his  lodgings  and  his  immediate  surroundings :  — 

"My  rooms  look  right  out  on  the  British  Mu- 
seum. I  have  a  comfortable  sitting-room  and  bed- 
room well  furnished,  with  grate  and  gas,  etc. ;  and 
have  got  a  cottage  piano  on  hire.  I  have  my  break- 
fast in  my  room  and  dine  at  a  French  restaurant 
near  by  and  am  living  very  comfortably  on  ten  or 
twelve  shillings  per  day  piano  included." 

He  was  pleased  to  find  in  the  same  house  his 
classmate  Jeremiah  Curtin,  still  in  pursuit  of  lin- 
guistic lore,  and  on  his  way  to  the  Caucasus,  which, 
Fiske  remarks,  "being  the  almightiest  Babel  of 
languages  on  earth,  is  a  paradise  for  Jeremiah !" 

On  Thursday  Fiske  received  a  cordial  note  of 
welcome  from  Spencer.  He  called  immediately  and 
was  very  warmly  received.  Spencer  entered  heart- 
ily into  Fiske's  plan  for  an  international  publi- 
cation of  his  philosophical  work,  and  strongly  rec- 
ommended Macmillan  for  his  English  publisher. 
He  also  offered  his  good  services  if  any  way  needed 
in  the  negotiation.  But  Fiske  had  no  difficulty  in 
getting  his  work  accepted  by  the  Macmillans  and 
on  precisely  the  same  terms  as  he  had  arranged  for 
the  American  publication  with  the  firm  of  James 
R.  Osgood  &  Co.,  of  which  I  was  then  a  member. 

457 


John  Fiske 

With  the  question  of  the  English  publication  of 
his  work  decided,  Fiske  settled  down  to  steady 
work  in  revising  his  lectures  and  in  the  writing  of  a 
few  new  chapters  in  order  to  round  out  his  Evolu- 
tionary thought  into  the  desired  philosophic  form. 
He  was  engaged  with  this  task  for  four  months, 
and  during  this  period  kept  his  rooms  at  67  Great 
Russell  Street,  which  soon  assumed  in  his  mind  — 
so  far  as  any  rooms  away  from  Cambridge  could  — 
the  nature  of  a  home. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  at  this  time  the 
sociological  implications  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion, in  their  bearing  upon  current  political,  ethi- 
cal, and  religious  thought,  were  under  very  general 
discussion  by  the  leading  English  thinkers,  and 
that  Fiske  in  his  work  in  hand  proposed  to  bring 
these  sociological  implications  more  distinctly 
under  review  than  any  Evolutionist  who  had  pre- 
ceded him  had  done.  Spencer,  it  is  true,  in  his 
''Social  Statics "  and  in  his  essays,  had  thrown  out 
many  fruitful  suggestions  along  these  lines;  but 
his  encyclopaedic  works,  "  Descriptive  Sociology/' 
"The  Principles  of  Sociology/'  and  "The  Prin- 
ciples of  Ethics/'  were  still  in  embryo,  while  his 
foundational  work,  "First  Principles/'  had  left 
the  thinking  world  in  doubt  as  to  the  nature  and 
realm  of  the  Unknowable  as  postulated  by  him. 
Fiske,  therefore,  had  a  very  definite  object  before 
him  in  this  London  visit.  It  was  nothing  less  than 
the  freeing  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  from  all 

458 


Cordially  Received 

kinship  with  the  Positive  Philosophy  of  Auguste 
Comte,  from  all  identification  with  atheism  or 
materialism,  while  at  the  same  time  rounding  it 
out  into  a  philosophic  system  based  upon  science;  a 
system  consisting  of  affirmations  as  to  the  existence 
of  Deity,  accompanied  by  verifiable  data  regarding 
the  cosmic  universe,  with  man's  place  in  it  with  his 
rational  mind,  as  a  unified,  ever-developing  mani- 
festation of  Deity.  And  it  was  for  the  completion 
of  this  important  task  that  he  desired  converse 
with  Spencer,  Darwin,  Huxley,  Lewes,  Tyndall, 
Hooker,  Clifford,  Lockyer,  and  a  few  others  of  the 
new  school  of  scientific  thought  in  England. 

Fiske  found  himself  on  his  arrival  by  no  means 
unknown  to  a  goodly  number  of  the  English  scien- 
tific thinkers.  His  essay  on  Buckle,  his  articles  in 
the  "North  American  Review "  and  the  "Fort- 
nightly," together  with  the  reports  of  his  Harvard 
lectures,  which  his  friend  You  mans  had  widely 
circulated  in  England,  had  already  drawn  attention 
to  him  as  an  exceptionally  well-equipped  thinker, 
as  well  as  a  lucid  expositor  along  the  new  lines  of 
thought  which  the  investigations  of  science  were 
daily  opening  to  view.  Then,  too,  his  trenchant 
article  on  Agassiz,  published  since  he  had  left 
home,  commended  him  to  all  the  Darwinians  in 
England:  so  much  so,  that,  to  his  surprise,  where- 
ever  he  was  introduced  he  not  only  found  himself 
known,  but  people  also  very  glad  to  meet  him. 
Then  his  bearing  was  so  simple  and  modest,  his 

459 


John  Fiske 

scholarship  so  broad  and  thorough,  and  his  speech 
so  unaffected  and  rich  with  well-digested  thought 
that  he  gained  the  confidence  and  cordial  coopera- 
tion of  the  group  of  eminent  men  whose  assistance 
he  so  much  desired. 

The  letters  not  only  show  how  cordially  he  was  re- 
ceived by  the  great  body  of  the  English  Evolution- 
ists; they  also  contain  interesting  particulars  of  the 
individual  assistance  rendered  him.  Professor  W. 
K.  Clifford,  the  eminent  mathematician,  rendered 
him  a  particularly  valuable  service,  as  Fiske  says, 
11  by  punching  through  about  six  pages  of  my  Nebu- 
lar Hypothesis  at  once,  and  so  saved  me  from 
getting  into  trouble  hereafter. "  With  Lockyer, 
the  astronomer,  he  had  several  interviews  and  an 
evening's  conference  on  the  Nebular  Hypothesis 
and  Spectroscopic  Astronomy.  Of  Darwin  he 
sought  particularly  some  information  regarding 
peculiarities  in  the  arrangement  of  leaves  around 
the  stem.  He  writes:  "It  was  delightful  to  see 
what  oceans  of  illustrations  Darwin  had  ready,  and 
how  absolutely  precise  his  conception  of  the  case 
was  and  how  simply  and  quietly  he  said  what  he 
had  to  say." 

Fiske  also  had  opportunities  to  ply  Hooker,  Tyn- 
dall,  Crookes,  Galton,  Foster,  Sir  Henry  Sumner 
Maine  with  questions  bearing  upon  their  special 
lines  of  investigation ;  while  with  Spencer,  Huxley, 
and  Lewes  he  enjoyed  the  freest  possible  converse 
extending  over  the  whole  period  of  his  London  so- 

460 


Letter  from  Huxley 

journ.  With  Spencer  and  Huxley  he  discussed  very 
fully  the  various  aspects  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion and  its  implications  upon  the  future  of  phil- 
osophic thought. 

In  the  midst  of  these  memorials  of  earnest  minds 
grappling  with  the  profound  mysteries  of  existence, 
it  is  pleasant  now  and  then  to  come  across  a  brief 
note — a  mere  scrap  of  paper — which,  redolent 
of  an  abounding  personality,  illumines  with  a  bit 
of  delightful  humor  the  whole  Evolutionary  sur- 
roundings. 

We  have  seen  that  among  Fiske's  ancestors  in 
Middletown  there  were  four  generations  who  con- 
secutively held  the  office  of  Town  Clerk,  and  that 
Fiske  himself  wrote  a  beautiful  hand.  It  appears 
that  during  this  London  visit,  he  desired  some 
information  regarding  Amphioxus,  one  of  the  low- 
est orders  of  vertebrates;  and  so  he  plied  Huxley 
with  one  of  his  beautiful  notes.  Huxley,  after  an- 
swering Fiske 's  question,  gives  what  lawyers  would 
call  an  obiter  dictum  on  the  probable  working  of  the 
Evolutionary  process  as  applied  to  Fiske's  hand- 
writing, which  is  full  of  pertinent  suggestions: — 

Huxley  to  Fiske 

My  dear  Fiske: — 

Amphioxus  is  quite  rightly  said  to  have  no 
brain.  The  anterior  extremity  of  the  nerve  end, 
what  represents  the  spinal  marrow,  is  rounded  off 
without  any  such  differentiation  as  would  give  it 
a  title  to  the  name  of  brain. 

461 


John  Fiske 

I  did  not  expect  you  yesterday,  knowing  that 
Macmillan  is  wise  in  his  generation,  but  we  shall 
look  for  you  on  Sunday  next. 

What  a  pity  you  did  not  continue  in  the  line  of 
your  ancestors.  In  another  generation  or  two  we 
might  have  had  a  Homo  Townclerkensis  whom  the 
orthodox  of  the  day  would  have  declared  to  have 
been  specially  created  in  the  latitude  of  Cambridge, 
U.S.;  and  they  would  have  justly  pointed  to  the 
difference  between  his  handwriting  and  that  of 
my  progeny  (all  of  whom  write  badly)  as  the  best 
evidence  of  specific  distinctness. 

Yours  very  truly, 

T.  H.  HUXLEY. 

It  was  under  these  favoring  conditions  that  the 
physical  or  scientific  portions  of  his  work  were  re- 
vised, that  the  sociological  chapters  were  largely 
rewritten,  and  the  chapters  entitled  "  Matter  and 
Spirit/'  "  Religion  as  Adjustment,"  and  the  "  Criti- 
cal Attitude  of  Philosophy"  were  entirely  com- 
posed. 

Fiske's  gratulatory  feeling  at  being  enabled  to 
revise  and  finish  his  work  under  such  happy  aus- 
pices, finds  frequent  expression  in  his  letters.  In 
November  he  writes: — 

11 1  am  thankful  to  be  over  here  doing  this  work, 
where  there  are  so  many  ready  and  glad  to  help 


me." 


And  again  in  December: — 

"This  is  what  I  always  longed  for,  to  be  able 
to  revise  my  book  in  England,  where  I  can  get  good 

462 


THOMAS   HENRY   HUXLEY 


Discussions  with  Spencer 

criticism  and  advice  from  competent  men,  before 
publishing;  and  now  I  seem  to  be  getting  my  wish 
accomplished."  v 

Among  the  many  interesting  people  he  met  in 
London  was  the  Reverend  Moncure  D.  Conway, 
an  American  Unitarian  minister  who  preached 
very  liberal  sermons  to  a  very  liberal  and  intelli- 
gent congregation  at  South  Place  Chapel,  and 
who  enjoyed  the  acquaintance  of  all  the  best 
thinkers  in  London.  Conway  and  Fiske  became 
very  warm  friends,  and  at  Conway's  earnest  re- 
quest Fiske  occupied  his  pulpit  for  two  Sundays, 
giving  two  discourses  on  Darwinism,  which  were 
received  with  marked  approval. 

Fiske' s  conferences  with  Spencer  were  many,  and 
were  of  an  exceedingly  pleasant  nature.  During 
their  conferences  two  incidents  arose  of  some  phil- 
osophic interest  which  are  referred  to  in  Fiske' s 
work,  but  which  are  more  clearly  set  forth  in  the 
letters.  The  first  relates  to  Fiske's  use  of  the  word 
"  Cosmic  "  in  the  title  to  his  work,  "  Outlines  of  Cos- 
mic Philosophy."  We  have  already  seen  that  while 
Fiske  was  delivering  his  lectures  at  Harvard  under 
the  title  of  "The  Positive  Philosophy,"  Spencer 
objected  to  the  title  "Positive  Philosophy"  being 
applied  to  the  philosophy  of  Evolution,  and  that 
for  his  own  system  he  had  adopted  the  title  "Syn- 
thetic Philosophy."  In  the  latter  part  of  Decem- 
ber Fiske  was  nearing  the  completion  of  his  work, 
and  with  the  assistance  of  Huxley  he  had  decided 

463 


John  Fiske 

upon  the  following  as  his  general  title:  "Outlines 
of  Cosmic  Philosophy  based  on  the  Doctrine  of 
Evolution,  with  criticisms  of  the  Positive  Phil- 
osophy. " 

On  submitting  this  title  to  Spencer,  he  at  once 
raised  objections,  evidently  the  outcome  of  a  feel- 
ing that  Fiske  was  in  a  way  giving  a  title  to  the 
philosophy  of  Evolution,  a  right  or  a  duty  that 
belonged  to  himself.  Several  letters  passed:  those 
from  Spencer,  although  perfectly  courteous  in  tone, 
indicate  some  degree  of  personal  irritation;  while 
the  letters  of  Fiske  are  so  free  from  all  personal 
self-seeking  in  the  matter,  so  direct  in  setting  forth 
the  implications  of  the  word  "  Cosmic "  in  the 
sense  in  which  he  has  used  the  term,  so  emphatic 
in  his  desire  to  clear  the  doctrine  of  Evolution 
from  all  affiliations  with  the  philosophy  of  Posi- 
tivism, and  so  frank  in  his  acknowledgment  of  his 
great  indebtedness  to  Spencer  for  thoughtful  in- 
spiration throughout  the  work,  that  Spencer  grace- 
fully withdrew  his  objections,  remarking,  "All 
that  I  wish  is  that  it  should  be  made  clear  that  I  did 
not  myself  adopt  the  word  '  Cosmic  '  and  do  not 
think  it  desirable  as  a  distinctive  title.'1  The  con- 
troversy was  conducted  with  such  perfect  frank- 
ness on  both  sides  that  its  settlement  left  no  feeling 
of  rancor  behind. 

As  the  substance  of  this  controversy  is  given  by 
Fiske  in  the  preface  to  his  "Cosmic  Philosophy," 
none  of  the  letters  are  given  here.  It  appears  that 

464 


Discussions  with  Spencer 

Fiske  had  the  cordial  support  of  Huxley  during  the 
controversy;  and  that  Huxley  strongly  opposed  the 
title  of  "Synthetic  Philosophy"  when  originally 
proposed  by  Spencer  as  a  distinctive  title  for  the 
philosophy  of  Evolution. 

The  other  incident  relates  to  Fiske' s  notable 
emendation  of  Spencer's  phrase  "nervous  shock1' 
into  "psychical  shock,"  in  his  chapter  "Matter 
and  Spirit."  This  emendation  was  an  important 
one,  and  much  has  been  made  of  it  in  subsequent 
psychological  and  philosophical  discussion.  Fiske 
says,  in  a  footnote,  that  the  emendation  was 
thoroughly  approved  by  Spencer.  In  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Fiske  we  have  the  particulars  of  the  interview  at 
which  Spencer  authorized  the  emendation,  with 
just  a  glimpse  at  the  personality  of  Spencer  that 
is  not  without  interest.  Fiske  says: — 

"Spencer  called  yesterday,  to  see  what  had  be- 
come of  me.  I  had  n't  seen  him  for  two  weeks. 
When  he  came  in,  I  had  just  been  quoting  and 
altering  and  mending  a  very  important  passage 
from  his  '  Psychology,'  and  apologising  in  a  foot- 
note for  the  liberty  I  had  taken  with  it.  Just  as  I 
had  done  this  he  came  in  and  I  read  it  to  him,  and 
he  told  me  to  add  in  my  footnote  that  he  approved 
of  my  emendation  and  considered  it  a  bully  thing."  l 

Fiske  then  adds  this  pleasing  incident: — 

1  This  emendation  was  an  important  one  and  struck  at  a  vital 
point  in  Spencer's  philosophy,  where  he  had  unwittingly  placed 
himself  in  the  hands  of  the  Materialists.  Emphatic  as  he  was  in 
commending  Fiske's  emendation,  it  does  not  appear  that  he  made 
any  change  in  his  text. 

465 


John  Fiske 

"  We  went  in  a  cab  to  St.  James's  Square  and  I  sat 
by  while  he  had  his  hair  cut  (what  little  he  has  got) 
and  it  tickled  me  to  hear  him  tell  the  barber: '  Now 
hold  your  scissorrrrrs  verrrrtically,  etc.'!!!  It  is 
positively  wonderful  the  way  he  rrrrolls  his  rrrs." 

How  diligently  and  with  what  spirit  Fiske  worked 
at  his  task  we  get  glimpses  from  the  letters  in  fre- 
quent passages  similar  to  the  following: — 

"Next  day  I  got  up  early  and  did  8  pages  on 
religion,  and  worked  like  thunder  the  rest  of  the 
week.  .  .  .  To-day  I  have  worked  all  day  and  have 
written  13  bran-new  pages  on  '  Matter  and  Spirit.' " 

In  January,  when  he  saw  that  the  end  of  his  task 
was  near,  he  writes:  — 

"Oh,  how  happy  I  have  been  in  London!  I  can 
never  outlive  it  or  forget  it.  It  has  been  all  solid 
pure  unbroken  happiness.  But  after  all,  Peters- 
ham, next  summer,  will  beat  it!!/19 

And  when  he  finishes  his  task  on  the  evening  of 
February  n,  he  writes  at  10  P.M.  in  the  following 
jubilant  strain :  — 

"Glory  to  God!!! 

"I  have  finished  'Matter  and  Spirit'  and  have 
been  out  (feeling  hungry)  to  get  a  mutton  chop  and 
glass  of  beer  in  Tottenham  Court  Road.  Glory 
Hallelujah!  MY  WORK  is  DONE!  This  has  been  a 
profitable  four  months  in  London!  To  get  that 
everlasting  big  book  into  shape  has  been  no  fool 
of  a  job;  and  it  has  been  well  done,  too —  O,  sing 
Hallelujah!" 

466 


Finishes  "  Cosmic  Philosophy  " 

Here,  as  we  make  record  of  the  finishing  of  his 
book,  which  was  at  the  time  the  completest  presen- 
tation of  the  philosophy  of  Evolution  in  its  bearing 
upon  religious  thought  that  had  been  made,  it  is 
eminently  fitting  that  we  insert  the  following  ex- 
tract from  a  letter  to  his  mother,  written  during 
his  stay  in  London,  in  which  he  gives  expression 
to  the  profoundly  religious  thought  that  underlies 
the  whole  of  his  philosophy.  His  mother  had 
questioned  the  nature  of  the  comfort  his  views  had 
for  aching  hearts,  for  people  in  affliction,  to  which 
he  replied: — 

"  As  for  the  comfort  which  '  my  science '  has  for 
aching  hearts,  the  form  of  your  question  shows  how 
little  you  understand  what  'my  science*  is.  If  I 
were  to  say  that  my  chief  comfort  in  affliction 
would  be  the  recognition  that  there  is  a  Supreme 
Power  manifested  in  the  totality  of  phenomena, 
the  workings  of  which  are  not  like  the  workings  of 
our  intelligence,  but  far  above  and  beyond  them, 
and  which  are  obviously  tending  to  some  grand 
and  worthy  result,  even  though  my  individual 
happiness  gets  crushed  in  the  process,  so  that  the 
only  proper  mental  attitude  for  me,  is  that  which 
says,  'not  my  will  but  thine  be  done*  —  if  I  were 
to  say  this,  you  would  probably  reply,  'Why,  this 
is  Christianity/  Well,  so  it  is,  I  think.  This,  how- 
ever, is  my  faith,  and  it  is  'a  faith  which  owns 
fellowship  with  thought/  as  Miss  Hennell  says. 
The  difference  between  the  Christianity  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  and  that  of  Mrs.  Pickett 1  is  nothing  but 

1  Mrs.  Pickett  was  a  faithful  family  servant  in  Middletown. 

467 


John  Fiske 

a  difference  of  symbols.  One  uses  the  language  of 
a  man,  and  the  other  that  of  a  child. 

"But  the  germ  of  a  faith  which  sustains  Mrs. 
Pickett  is  something  which  Spencer  has  not  got 
rid  of,  —  it  is  something  which  mankind  will  never 
get  rid  of.  Read  Matthew  Arnold's  'Literature 
and  Dogma '  and  you  will  see  how  little  he  cares 
for  doctrinal  symbols,  how  much  he  cares  for  the 
kernel  of  the  thing.  And  when  my  '  Cosmic  Phil- 
osophy '  comes  out,  you  will  see  how  utterly  im- 
possible it  is  that  Christianity  should  die  out;  but 
how  utterly  inevitable  it  is,  that  it  should  be  meta- 
morphosed, even  as  it  has  been  metamorphosed 
over  and  over  again." 

And  so,  with  his  task  of  composition  finished, 
Fiske  spent  a  few  days  in  visiting  Westminster 
Abbey,  the  House  of  Commons,  Westminster  Hall, 
and  a  few  other  places  of  interest  which  he  had 
not  had  time  to  visit  before;  and  in  saying  good- 
bye for  a  season  to  Spencer,  the  Huxleys,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Lewes,  Ralston,  and  Macmillan.  On  Wednes- 
day, the  1 7th  of  February,  he  delivered  the  last 
of  his  manuscript  to  the  printer,  and  in  stating 
this  fact  to  Mrs.  Fiske  he  takes  great  pleasure  in 
noting  that  the  delivery  was  on  the  twelfth  anni- 
versary of  their  engagement. 

On  the  1 9th  of  February  he  left  London  for 
Brighton,  and  on  the  2Oth  he  set  out  for  the  Con- 
tinent, via  Dieppe,  Rouen,  and  Paris. 

Fiske's  sojourn  in  London,  however,  is  of  gene- 

468 


Personal  Sketches 

ral  interest  for  another  reason  than  the  comple- 
tion of  his  "Cosmic  Philosophy "  —  his  personal 
sketches  of  the  eminent  persons  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact.  Reference  has  been  made  to 
the  reputation  that  had  preceded  him,  and  to  the 
social  attentions  he  received.  The  latter  were  in- 
deed remarkable,  and  they  began  immediately  upon 
his  arrival.  His  cordial  reception  by  Spencer, 
Lewes,  Darwin,  Huxley,  and  his  genial  publisher 
Macmillan,  opened  to  him  entrances  to  the  high- 
est intellectual  and  social  converse  that  London 
had  to  bestow.  He  was  given  the  full  privileges 
of  the  Athenaeum  and  of  the  Cosmopolitan  clubs 
—  two  of  the  most  select  and  distinguished  clubs  in 
London.  He  dined  with  the  X  Club,  the  most 
exclusive  club  in  England.  Darwin  gave  him  a 
luncheon.  Spencer  gave  him  a  special  dinner  with 
Huxley,  Tyndall,  Lewes,  and  Dr.  Jackson.  He  was 
Huxley's  guest  at  a  dinner  of  the  Royal  Society. 
He  was  given  a  special  dinner  by  the  "Citizens  of 
Noviomagas,"  a  club  of  "  jolly  good  fellows."  And 
then,  best  of  all,  he  was  made  an  ever-welcome 
guest  at  the  delightful  home  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Lewes  (George  Eliot),  the  Huxleys,  and  of  his 
"bonny  old  Scot"  publisher,  Macmillan. 

It  was  under  these  favorable  conditions  that 
Fiske  had  the  pleasure  of  becoming  personally  ac- 
quainted, not  only  with  all  the  persons  named, 
but  also  with  several  others  hardly  less  distin- 
guished for  their  contributions  to  the  science  and 

469 


John  Fiske 

the  literature  of  the  time;  as,  for  instance,  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  Hooker,  Foster,  Clifford,  Lockyer, 
Proctor,  Pollock,  Crookes,  Galton,  Max  Miiller, 
Tennyson,  Charles  Kingsley,  Browning,  Tom 
Hughes,  Anthony  Trollope,  James  Sime,  Lord 
Arthur  Russel,  Lord  Acton,  and  others. 

Fiske's  letters  to  Mrs.  Fiske,  to  his  mother,  and 
to  his  children  written  during  his  London  sojourn 
would  fill  a  volume  by  themselves.  They  have 
been  carefully  preserved  and  abound  with  graphic 
sketches  of  the  eminent  people  with  whom  he  was 
brought  into  close  personal  relations  in  the  work- 
ing-out of  his  philosophic  scheme.  They  also  give 
full  accounts  of  his  social  diversions,  at  the  clubs, 
at  the  homes  of  Macmillan,  the  Huxleys,  the  Lewes's, 
of  Triibner  (the  publisher),  and  others:  and  they 
also  abound  in  rare  and  appreciative  criticisms 
upon  the  musical  entertainments  he  enjoyed. 
Then,  too,  the  letters  give  expression  to  the  ever- 
painful  feeling  in  his  heart  at  his  isolation  from  his 
home  —  from  his  wife  and  his  children.  This  feel- 
ing of  isolation,  combined  with  a  feeling  of  sadness 
at  having  pleasures  he  cannot  share  with  them, 
permeates  all  the  letters  like  a  sad  refrain,  revealing 
the  deep  tenderness  of  his  nature,  and  giving  to 
the  letters  a  rare  personal  charm. 

Space  can  be  given  to  but  a  few  additional  ex- 
tracts from  these  letters:  and  these  extracts  are 
limited  to  personal  sketches  of  Spencer,  Darwin, 
Huxley,  Lewes,  George  Eliot,  and  Sir  Charles 

470 


Herbert  Spencer 

Lyell,  because  these  persons,  beyond  all  others 
that  he  met,  had  been  influential  in  shaping  the 
current  of  his  evolutionary  thought. 

Herbert  Spencer 

The  reader,  as  he  recalls  Fiske's  enthusiasm  for 
Herbert  Spencer  during  his  college  days,  together 
with  his  efforts  during  the  intervening  years  to 
interpret  Spencer's  philosophy,  that  of  Evolution, 
to  the  American  mind,  will  be  interested  in  getting 
his  impressions  of  Spencer's  personality  as  derived 
from  their  intercourse  during  this  London  sojourn. 

Fiske's  first  impressions  of  Spencer  are  given  in 
two  letters  written  October  13  and  17,  1873,  the 
one  to  Mrs.  Fiske,  and  the  other  to  his  mother,  and 
the  following  is  the  merging,  in  his  own  words,  of 
the  sketches  in  both  letters:  —  ' 

"  I  called  on  Herbert  Spencer  last  Thursday.  He 
received  me  very  warmly,  and  we  walked  back  to 
town  together.  He  is  a  ferocious  walker.  I  would 
like  to  see  him  and  James  [Brooks]  start  out  on  a 
wager.  He  is  built  for  travel.  I  dined  with  him  on 
Friday,  and  narrated  my  projects  and  he  took 
great  interest.  He  is  exceedingly  refined  and  ele- 
gant in  manner,  and  appears  like  the  great  man 
he  is,  though  he  seems  overworked.  He  is  at  last 
getting  a  handsome  income  from  his  books.  I 
shall  see  a  great  deal  more  of  him.  I  told  him  all 
about  my  infancy  chapter,  and  he  says  it  is  a  grand 
discovery,  and  belongs  entirely  to  me!  He  was 
very  much  wrought  up  by  it,  and  had  never 
dreamed  of  it  before." 

47i 


John  Fiske 

While  this  rather  meagre  presentation  of  Spen- 
cer's personality  leaves  much  to  be  desired,  it  con- 
firms in  a  marked  degree  the  impression  we  have  of 
him  derived  from  a  variety  of  sources —  that  he 
lacked  the  power  of  inspiring  enthusiasm.  But 
Fiske's  veneration  for  him  was  so  great,  he  could 
overlook  his  personal  shortcomings  in  apprecia- 
tion of  his  greatness,  and  in  the  following  extracts 
we  have  perhaps  the  completest  presentation  of 
Spencer's  personality  that  has  been  given.  Writ- 
ing to  Mrs.  Fiske,  a  little  later  he  says:  —  i 

"This  morning  dear  old  Spencer  came  in  to  see 
me  just  after  breakfast,  and  staid  an  hour.  He 
does  n't  feel  very  well,  having  overworked  during 
the  summer,  without  much  if  any  vacation;  and 
he  said  to  me  that  he  would  be  darned  if  he  would 
ever  again  undertake  to  do  any  work  on  time. 
'Dear  me,1  I  told  him,  'have  n't  you  been  making 
that  same  vow  over  and  over  again  ever  since  you 
were  30  years  old,  and  have  n't  you  invariably 
busted  it?'  Yes,  he  said,  he  was  always  vowing 
never  to  do  so  again,  but  his  vows  were  always 
busted.  .  .  .  The  old  fellow  was  as  charming  as  a 
magician,  and  we  had  an  almighty  fine  chin-wag." 

In  his  account  of  the  dinner  which  Spencer  gave 
him,  at  which  Huxley,  Lewes,  Tyndall,  and  others 
were  present,  and  at  which,  he  says,  "we  dis- 
cussed pretty  much  the  whole  universe  from  cellar 
to  attic,"  Fiske  writes  to  Mrs.  Fiske:  — 

"Spencer  was  benign  and  admirable  as  always; 
and  the  reverence  which  all  these  men  feel  for  him 

472 


Herbert  Spencer 

was  thoroughly  apparent,  in  the  way  in  which 
they  listened  to  every  word  that  came  out  of  his 
mouth." 

And  to  his  mother  Fiske  writes:  — 

"You  don't  seem  to  know  that  Spencer  is  a 
bachelor.  How  he  came  to  know  so  much  about 
bringing  up  children  I  don't  know,  except  that  such 
imperial  common-sense  as  his  cannot  go  far  wrong 
on  any  subject.  Of  all  the  men  I  have  ever  seen 
he  impresses  me  as  the  most  remarkably  endowed 
with  good  straightforward  common-sense.  .  .  . 
This  illustrates  what  I  have  often  thought,  that 
a  really  good  psychologist  —  a  man  who  really 
fathoms  all  the  processes  of  thinking  and  the 
methods  of  reaching  conclusions  —  has  an  advan- 
tage over  all  other  kinds  of  men.  He  gets  down  to 
the  bottom  of  what  they  are  thinking  about.  It  is 
now  getting  to  be  generally  admitted  that  in  all 
human  history,  the  only  men  to  be  compared  with 
Spencer  for  insight  into  mental  processes,  are  Aris- 
totle, Berkeley,  and  Kant.  And  it  is  this  wonder- 
ful insight  into  the  mind  which  is  the  secret  of  that 
supreme  common-sense  which  he  shows  in  his  chap- 
ters on  Education,  and  in  everything  he  writes.1' 

A  little  later  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Fiske:  — 

"Then  Conway  and  I  went  to  Spencer's.  Spen- 
cer was  down  with  his  liver,  and  his  stomach, 
and  his  back-bone,  and  caved-in  generally,  and 
disposed  to  be  grouty;  but  he  shook  my  hand  in 
an  unmistakably  affectionate  way,  and  evidently 
tried  to  be  as  jolly  as  he  could.  The  more  I  see  of 
the  poor  old  fellow,  the  more  I  pity  him  from  the 

473 


John  Fiske 

bottom  of  my  heart.  He  is  so  lonely  and  so  cur- 
tailed from  want  of  human  sympathy.  And  I  don't 
see  how  he  is  ever  going  to  finish  his  work  with  his 
present  health.  He  thinks  it  a  wonderful  day's 
work,  if  he  can  only  keep  at  it  from  9  A.M.  until 


noon.'! 


And  again :  — 

"Yesterday  I  lunched  with  Spencer,  and  walked 
back  through  Kensington  Gardens  and  Hyde  Park 
with  him.  It  was  a  beautiful  day  —  warm  as 
summer  —  and  such  a  delicious  grey-blue  sky  as  I 
never  saw  before.  I  was  wild  with  delight.  But 
Spencer  never  seems  to  warm  up  to  anything  but 
ideas.  He  has  got  so  infernally  critical,  that  not 
even  the  finest  work  of  God  —  a  perfect  day  —  is 
quite  fine  enougli  for  him.  So  he  picked  flaws  with 
the  grey-blue  sky,  and  the  peculiar  Turner-like 
light,  and  everything.  However,  he  was  very  jolly, 
and  we  had  a  grand  talk  about  primitive  language, 
which  he  has  got  on  the  brain  just  now.  His  talk 
is  very  charming."  ( 

It  appears  that  on  one  occasion,  Spencer  in- 
vited Fiske  to  luncheon  at  the  Athenaeum  Club, 
forgetting  that  he  (Spencer)  had  an  important 
engagement.  At  the  appointed  hour,  Spencer  did 
not  appear,  and  Fiske,  on  his  return  to  his  rooms, 
found  a  note  explaining  matters.  Fiske  sends  the 
note  to  Mrs.  Fiske  with  the  following  comments, 
and  with  an  additional  sketch  of  Spencer's  per- 
sonality : —  ) 

"Keep  it  [the  note]  as  a  relic.    People  would 

474 


[FACSIMILE] 


C^Ov-  lyS^^, 

/^LaSL^si    ^P^~-^-^_ 

i,^"^^ 


Herbert  Spencer 

give  a  good  deal  for  some  such  little  scrap  show- 
ing how  Newton  got  his  head  overburdened  and 
made  an  impracticable  appointment*,  with  a  friend. 
But  Spencer  is  as  wonderful  a  man  as  Newton,  and 
this  little  bit  from  him  is  worth  as  much  as  the 
other  would  be.  Poor  old  fellow!  One  can  easily 
see  that  he  labours  under  the  weight  of  his  mighty 
mind,  and  that  the  body  protests  against  the  quan- 
tity of  work  it  has  to  do  in  keeping  said  mind  a- 
going.  Thus  is  the  world  made;  you  can't  eat  your 
cake  and  keep  it.  Books  like  'First  Principles' 
are  made  at  the  cost  of  terrible  wear  and  tear  of  the 
nerves.  But  Spencer  does  n't  show  it  in  the  same 
way  that  Lewes  does.  He  does  n't  look  feeble,  but 
he  looks  tired.  He  is  wiry,  and  tough,  and  athletic, 
and  looks  like  a  very  strong  man,  tired.  Lewes 
looks  feeble.  That  is  the  difference.  I  can  fear  that 
Lewes  may  come  in  with  his  work  half  done,  but 
I  can  imagine  it  more  likely  that  Spencer  may  stick 
to  it,  tired  as  he  is,  for  many  a  year  to  come.  They 
are  a  wonderful  pair,  anyway,  and  either  one  of 
them  would  have  been  worth  the  journey  across 
the  ocean  to  see. 

"I  showed  Spencer  the  basket- wagon  *  picker- 
wow/  this  morning,  and  also  the  'pickerwow'  of 
'Tick'  sitting  on  the  cricket,  and  of  '  Barl'  with  his 
hat  and  waterproof  cape-coat  on;  and  I  told  him 
how  I  used  to  go  to  Spy  Pond  with  my  babies,  and 
he  said  he  should  like  to  be  there,  and  go  along  with 
us!  When  I  think  how  lonely  he  must  be  without 
any  wife  and  babies,  and  how  solitary  he  is  in  all 
his  greatness,  it  makes  me  pity  him,  and  feel  very 
tenderly  toward  him.  When  I  watched  him  in- 
tently examining  the  basket- wagon  'picker wow/ 

475 


John  Fiske 

I  felt,  though  I  did  not  say  it — 'By  Jove,  that 
wagon-load  is  worth  more  than  all  the  philosophy 
that  ever  was  concocted,  from  Aristotle  to  Spencer 
inclusive.'  '  ^ 

Charles  Darwin 

Fiske's  veneration  for  Darwin  was  hardly  less 
than  his  veneration  for  Spencer.^  While  he  cred- 
ited Spencer  with  being  the  first  thinker  of  mod- 
ern times  to  bring  forward  the  idea  of  Evolution 
as  the  mode  of  manifestation  of  an  unknown  power 
underlying  all  the  phenomena  of  the  inorganic  and 
organic  universe,  he  recognized  Darwin  as  having 
furnished  the  most  indubitable  proof  of  Evolution 
in  the  organic  world  by  his  epoch-making  books, 
"The  Origin  of  Species"  and  "The  Descent  of 
Man."  Fiske's  desire  to  meet  Darwin,  therefore, 
for  converse  on  some  of  the  points  in  the  philoso- 
phy of  Evolution  he  was  working  out,  especially  in 
its  relation  to  sociologic  man,  was  hardly  less  than 
his  desire  to  meet  Spencer. 

He  learned,  however,  that  Darwin  was  in  quite 
feeble  health,  and  hesitated  about  asking  for  an 
interview,  fearing  it  would  be  an  intrusion  upon 
Darwin's  necessary  seclusion.  But  as  he  settled 
down  to  his  task,  the  desire  to  consult  Darwin  be- 
came so  strong  that  he  was  induced  to  send  the 
latter  a  note  in  which  he  stated  his  purpose  in  Lon- 
don and  from  which  the  following  extract  is  taken: 

"I  have  known  and  revered  you  so  many  years, 
that  it  would  give  me  great  pleasure  if  I  could 

476 


Charles  Darwin 

meet  you  and  shake  hands  with  you  before  leav- 
ing England.  There  are  some  subjects  about 
which  I  would  fain  have  a  word  or  two  of  conver- 
sation; but  as  Mr.  Spencer  tells  me  that  you  are 
(like  himself)  feeling  poorly  at  present,  and  as  I 
know  what  a  bore  philosophy  is  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, I  shall  seek  for  nothing  more  than  to 
tell  you  face  to  face,  how  much  I,  in  common  with 
all  thinking  men,  owe  to  you." 

This  note  brought  the  following  prompt  reply 
from  Darwin :  — 

DOWN,  November  3,  1873. 
My  dear  Sir :  — 

I  am  much  obliged  for  your  very  kind  letter.  I 
am  very  glad  of  the  nature  of  the  work  on  which 
you  are  engaged.  I  see  so  few  people  that  I  had 
not  heard  of  your  presence  in  London.  At  the  end 
of  the  week  I  shall  be  in  London  at  my  daughter's 
house,  and  I  will  on  the  following  week  propose  your 
coming  to  luncheon,  which  is  generally  my  best  time, 
and  I  trust  this  may  not  be  inconvenient  to  you. 

I  did  receive  the  "  Popular  Science  Monthly " 
and  read  your  attack  (an  attack  it  was  with  a 
vengeance  though  properly  admitting  his  great 
services)  on  Agassiz,  with  great  interest.  I  have 
not  received  the  "  North  American "  and  shall  be 
very  glad  to  see  it,  but  I  can  order  a  copy  for  my- 
self. Until  we  meet,  1 
Yours  very  sincerely, 

CH.  DARWIN. 

On  the  evening  after  the  luncheon  Fiske  writes 
Mrs.  Fiske  as  follows:  — 

477  , 


John  Fiske 

"To-day,  I  lunched  with  Darwin  and  Mrs.  Dar- 
win, Mrs.  Litchfield  (Darwin's  daughter),  Frank 
Darwin  (whom  I  saw  in  Boston  two  years  ago)  and 
Miss  Bessie  Darwin,  and  Dr.  Hooker,  the  greatest 
living  botanist,  and  Mrs.  Hooker.  .  .  .  Darwin  is 
the  dearest,  sweetest,  loveliest  old  Grandpa  that 
ever  was.  And  on  the  whole  he  impresses  me 
with  his  strength  more  than  any  man  I  have  yet 
seen.  There  is  a  charming  kind  of  quiet  strength 
about  him  and  about  everything  he  does.  He  is 
not  burning  and  eager  like  Huxley.  He  has  a  mild 
blue  eye,  and  is  the  gentlest  of  gentle  old  fellows. 
I  think  he  would  make  a  noble  picture  after  the 
style  of  mother's  picture  which  I  call  'Galileo/ 
His  long  white  hair  and  enormous  beard  make 
him  very  picturesque.  And  what  is  so  delightful 
to  see,  as  that  perfect  frankness  and  guileless  sim- 
plicity of  manner,  which  comes  from  a  man  having 
devoted  his  whole  life  to  some  great  idea,  without 
a  thought  of  self,  and  without  ever  having  become 
a  '  man  of  the  world '  ?  I  had  a  warm  greeting  from 
the  dear  old  man,  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  never  see 
him  again,  for  his  health  is  very  bad,  and  he  had 
to  make  a  special  effort  to  see  me  to-day.  Of  all 
my  days  in  England,  I  prize  to-day  the  most;  and 
what  I  pity  you  most  of  all  for,  my  dear,  is  that 
you  have  n't  seen  our  dear  grand  old  Darwin!  I 
think  we  both  felt  it  might  be  the  last  time.  He 
came  to  the  door  with  me  and  gave  me  a  warm  grip 
of  the  hand  and  best  wishes,  and  watched  me  down 
the  road  till  I  turned  the  corner,  when  I  took  off  my 
hat  and  bowed  good-bye." 

On  the  same  day,  November  13,  Fiske  wrote  his 
mother  as  follows:  — 

478 


Sketch  of  George  Henry  Lewes 

"Of  course  I  have  formed  opinions  of  all  these 
men,  but  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  they  seem  in 
the  flesh.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Spencer  is  the 
profoundest  thinker  of  all.  But  Darwin  impressed 
me  with  a  sense  of  strength  more  than  any  other 
man  I  have  ever  seen.  Instead  of  Huxley's  intense 
black  eye,  he  has  got  a  mild  blue  eye,  and  his  man- 
ner is  full  of  repose.  None  of  these  men  seem  to 
know  how  great  they  are.  But  Darwin  is  one  of 
the  most  truly  modest  men  I  ever  saw.  The  com- 
bination of  power  and  quiet  modesty  in  him,  is  more 
impressive  than  I  can  describe.  I  regard  my  lunch 
with  Darwin  the  climax  of  everything  thus  far." 

George  Henry  Lewes 

Next  to  Spencer  and  Darwin,  the  man  Fiske 
most  desired  to  meet  in  the  prosecution  of  his  work 
was  George  Henry  Lewes.  We  have  seen  that  when 
Fiske  gave  up  the  practice  of  the  law  to  devote 
himself  to  literature,  Lewes,  as  editor  of  the  "  Fort- 
nightly Review,"  the  organ  of  liberal  thought  in 
England,  cordially  welcomed  him  as  an  unham- 
pered contributor,  with  a  more  satisfactory  re- 
muneration that  he  had  received  at  home.  Then, 
beside  this  fact,  Fiske  had  been  a  careful  reader  of 
Lewes's  "Life  of  Goethe,"  his  "Seaside  Studies," 
and  his  essay  on  Aristotle ;  while  Lewes's  "History 
of  Philosophy,"  with  its  masterly  analyses  of  the  dif- 
ferent schools  of  philosophy  from  Thales  to  Comte, 
had  been  familiar  to  Fiske  ever  since  his  college 
days  as  a  sort  of  textbook  of  human  thinking,  illus- 
trating one  great  evolutionary  truth  that  — 

479 


John  Fiske 

Through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widen 'd  with  the  process  of 
the  suns." 

Fiske's  first  meeting  with  Lewes  was  by  chance 
in  the  store  of  Trubner,  the  publisher,  and  under 
date  of  October  23  he  gives  the  following  graphic 
sketch  of  Lewes's  personality:  — 

"Tuesday,  I  went  down  to  Trubner's  store  in 
Ludgate  Hill,  near  St.  Paul's,  and  there  I  met 
Mr.  Lewes.  He  looks  very  old  and  feeble  for  a 
man  of  55 ;  somewhat  weazen,  and  little,  like  Ezra 
Abbot,  and  ever  so  homely  —  a  great  deal  more 
homely  than  his  picture.  But  when  he  opens  his 
mouth  to  speak,  he  becomes  transfigured  in  a 
moment.  I  never  saw  anything  more  winning  than 
the  beautiful  and  cordial  smile  with  which  he  met 
me,  and  expressed  his  pleasure  at  seeing  me  at 
last.  I  had  meant  to  say  all  that  to  him,  but  he 
forestalled  me.  His  manners  are  fascinating  beyond 
all  description,  and  he  took  my  heart  captive  at 
once.  I  never  before  saw  a  man  who  seemed  so 
full  of  the  divine  indescribable  something  that 
makes  a  man  different  from  common  men  —  and 
all  this  in  spite  of  his  homely,  and  meagre  and 
puny  physique.  I  don't  wonder  that  he  captivated 
George  Eliot.  I  think  he  is  just  the  man  that  any 
woman  would  get  in  love  with,  who  had  an  eye  for 
the  spirituelle.  We  talked  about  an  hour,  when  he 
said  he  must  run  and  catch  a  train  to  get  home  to 
his  wife,  for  he  had  promised  her  not  to  stay  more 
than  three  hours  in  the  city. 

"The  work  which  he  is  beginning  to  publish  is 
one  of  great  scope,  and  will  fill  many  volumes  if 

480 


GEORGE   HENRY   LEWES 


Sketch  of  George  Henry  Lewes 

it  is  ever  finished.1  But  it  was  with  a  pang  that  I 
heard  him  allude  to  the  probability  of  his  never 
finishing  it,  for  it  seems  only  too  probable.  He 
said  his  wife  called  him  her  'Mr.  Casaubon' 2  and 
kept  egging  him  on  to  publish  and  get  rid  of  what 
he  had  got  on  hand  anyway  —  the  force  of  which 
you  will  appreciate  if  you  read  '  Middlemarch.' 
He  is  reading  my  Myth-book  with  his  wife,  and 
they  like  it  much.  I  am  at  last  to  see  the  great 
George  Eliot  on  Sunday,  November  23,  at  two 
o'clock  P.M.  They  will  then  have  returned  to  town, 
and  I  am  to  lunch  with  them  on  that  day.  So  you 
can  then  imagine  Hezzy  in  clover.  I  am  perfectly 
in  love  with  Lewes/' 

Lewes  gave  Fiske,  in  sheets,  a  copy  of  his  forth- 
coming book,  "Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,"  and 
under  date  of  November  18,  Fiske  writes  Mrs. 
Fiske  as  follows:  — 

"I  read  Lewes's  book,  ('Problems  of  Life  and 
Mind')  in  the  sheets,  and  I  consider  his  treatment 
of  Kant  one  of  the  most  masterly  pieces  of  philo- 
sophical criticism  I  ever  read.  I  told  Darwin  about 
it,  and  found  that  he  has  a  great  admiration  for 
Lewes's  straightforward  and  clean-cut  mind.  I 
have  made  up  my  mind  that  Lewes  will  have  a 
permanent  place  in  history  as  the  critic  of  Kant, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  other  things  he  has  done. 
What  a  comical  old  fellow  he  is!  At  the  dinner  the 
other  day  [Spencer's  dinner  to  Fiske]  I  was  say- 

1  A  history  of  science,  the  first  section  of  which  was  "  Problems 
of  Life  and  Mind." 

2  Fiske  says:  "  Mrs.  Lewes  calls  it  Cas-au'bon,  with  the  accent  on 
the  second  syllable,  but  she  says  a  good  many  people  of  that  name  in 
England  call  themselves  Cas'au-b&n,  with  accent  on  first  syllable." 

481 


John  Fiske 

ing  that  very  soon  we  should  see  Evolution  taken 
up  by  the  orthodox.  'To  be  sure/  says  Lewes,  'for 
don't  you  see  that  Evolution  requires  an  Evolver? ' 
Huxley  was  telling  about  something  I  said  in  my 
Agassiz  article,  when  Spencer  blandly  interrupted 
with  'What  will  Agassiz  say  to  all  that?'  'O,' 
said  Lewes,  '  he  will  say  what  Louis  XIV  said  after 
the-  battle  of  Ramillies  —  Dieu  nCa,  abandonne; 
et  apres  tout  ce  que  fai  fait  pour  Lull! I '  " 

George  Eliot 

Fiske  was  no  less  desirous  of  meeting  Mrs. 
Lewes  —  George  Eliot  —  than  he  was  of  meeting 
Lewes.  He  had  been  a  careful  reader  of  her  various 
books  and  regarded  them  as  the  products  of  a 
genius  of  the  highest  order.  The  wide  variety  of 
characters  she  had  created  into  the  world  of  litera- 
ture, such  as  Dinah,  Mrs.  Poyser,  Dorothea,  Rom- 
ola,  Fidalma,  Adam  Bede,  Caleb  Garth,  Felix 
Holt,  Tito,  Savonarola,  and  Zarca,  he  considered 
unexcelled  in  modern  fiction;  while  he  seemed  to 
see  through  them  all  the  reflection  of  a  mind  that 
was  looking  out  upon  the  drama  of  human  life,  not 
with  the  pessimistic  view  of  the  theologic-dogma- 
tist,  but  rather  with  an  optimistic  faith  born  of 
a  belief  in  Evolution  —  "of  a  power  within  us, 
not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness." 

The  story  of  the  marital  relations  of  Lewes  and 
Marian  Evans  (George  Eliot)  is  not  in  place  here. 
Fiske  gave  to  his  mother  the  whole  story,  and  in 
closing  it  he  says:  — 

482 


Sketch  of  George  Eliot 

"My  notions  of  these  things  are  almost  asceti- 
cally  strict;  but  about  this  case  I  have  always  felt 
(knowing  the  thoroughly  upright  and  noble  charac- 
ter of  Lewes,  and  presuming  George  Eliot  to  be  no 
less  so)  that  in  all  probability  they  did  the  very 
best  they  knew  how;  and  there  are  mighty  few 
people  who  are  in  a  position  to  go  pitching  stones 
at  them/' 

We  have  seen  that  at  his  first  meeting  with  Lewes 
Fiske  was  invited  to  luncheon  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Lewes  on  November  23,  shortly  after  their  return 
to  town.  Fiske  looked  forward  to  meeting  these 
two  people  in  their  own  home  with  great  anticipa- 
tions; and  on  October  31  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Fiske:  > — 

"Remember  that  on  Sunday,  November  23,  I 
lunch  with  Lewes  and  George  Eliot.  Imagine 
Hezzy  as  hard  as  you  can  when  that  day  comes 
around,  and  if  George  Eliot  is  half  as  bewitching  as 
her  husband,  I  shall  no  doubt  have  a  day  of  it  long 
to  be  remembered.'1 

On  November  23,  with  the  interview  fresh  in 
mind,  he  writes  Mrs.  Fiske  as  follows:  — 

"To-day,  my  dear,  I  have  been  to  the  Lewes's 
.  .  .  And  Ralston  was  there  and  there  never  was 
a  room  so  dark  that  his  presence  would  n't  at  once 
make  sunlight  in  it.  And  '  Kingdon '  Clifford  was 
there,  and  several  others  —  too  many,  indeed,  for 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lewes  had  to  play  hostess  to  so 
many  that  I  could  n't  talk  to  her  half  so  much  as 
I  wanted  to. 

"Well,  what  do  I  think  of  her?    She  is  a  plain- 

483 


John  Fiske 

looking  woman,  but  I  think  not  especially  homely. 
She  is  much  better  looking  than  George  Sand.  She 
is  n't  a  blooming  beauty,  of  course:  you  don't  ex- 
pect that  at  fifty-two.  But  her  features  are  regular, 
her  nose  is  very  good,  her  eyes  are  a  rich  blue  and 
very  expressive,  her  mouth  is  very  large,  but  it  is 
pleasant  in  expression.  Her  hair  is  light  and  profuse, 
and  she  wears  a  lovely  lace  cap  over  it  —  and  looks 
simple,  and  frank,  and  cordial,  and  matronly,  and 
seems  ever  so  fond  of  Lewes,  and  he  ever  so  fond 
of  her.  I  call  her  a  real  good,  honest,  genuine, 
motherly  woman  with  no  nonsense  about  her.  She 
seemed  glad  to  see  me.  She  said  when  my  Myth- 
book  came  to  her  (I  sent  her  a  copy  last  sum- 
mer, as  you  know),  she  was  sitting  on  the  floor, 
fixing  a  rug,  or  something  of  the  sort,  and  she  got 
so  absorbed  in  my  book  that  she  sat  on  the  floor 
all  the  afternoon,  till  Lewes  came  in,  and  routed 
her  up!  She  thought  it  was  a  beautiful  book;  but 
she  had  known  me  ages  ago,  when  I  first  wrote  to 
Lewes  and  sent  things  to  the  'Fortnightly/  But 
she  disagreed  with  me  as  to  the  unity  of  the  Hom- 
eric poems.  I  found  she  was  a  strong  Wolfian! 
Well,  we  had  a  hard  battle  over  it  —  she  and  I. 
I  never  saw  such  a  woman.  There  is  nothing  a 
bit  masculine  about  her.  She  is  thoroughly  femi- 
nine. But  she  has  a  power  of  stating  an  argument 
equal  to  any  man.  Equal  to  any^man,  do  I  say?  I 
have  never  seen  any  man,  except  Herbert  Spencer, 
who  could  state  a  case  equal  to  her.  I  found  her 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  whole  literature  of 
the  Homeric  question;  and  she  seems  to  have  read 
all  of  Homer  in  Greek,  too,  and  could  meet  me 
everywhere.  She  did  n't  talk  like  a  blue-stocking 

484 


GEORGE   ELIOT 


Sketch  of  George  Eliot 

—  as  if  she  were  aware  she  had  got  hold  of  a  big 
topic  —  but  like  a  plain  woman,  who  talked  of 
Homer  as  simply  as  she  would  of  flat-irons.  She 
showed  an  amazing  knowledge  of  the  subject.  But, 
you  see,  Hezzy  is  not  a  fool  on  the  Homer-question. 
He  knows  every  bit  of  the  '  Iliad '  and  *  Odyssey '  as 
well  as  he  knows  the  '  Pickwick  Papers/  and  so  he 
was  a  little  too  much  for  her.  On  the  whole,  she 
was  inclined  to  beat  a  retreat  before  we  got  through, 
and  said  she  was  glad  of  some  new  considerations 
that  Hezzy  had  presented  on  the  subject — though, 
on  the  whole,  I  don't  think  I  converted  her. 

"I  never  before  saw  just  such  a  clear-headed 
woman.  She  thinks  just  like  a  man,  and  can  put 
her  thoughts  into  clear  and  forcible  language  at  a 
moment's  notice.  And  her  knowledge  is  quite 
amazing.  I  have  often  heard  of  learned  women, 
whose  learning,  I  have  usually  found,  is  a  mighty 
flimsy  affair.  But  to  meet  with  a  woman  who 
can  meet  you  like  a  man,  on  such  a  question  as  that 
of  the  Homeric  poems,  knowing  the  ins  and  outs  of 
the  question,  and  not  putting  on  any  airs,  but  talk- 
ing sincerely  of  the  thing  as  a  subject  which  has 
deeply  interested  her  —  this  is,  indeed,  quite  a 
new  experience. 

"On  the  whole,  I  enjoyed  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lewes 
immensely  to-day;  and  I  think  Lewes  a  happy  man 
in  having  such  a  simple-hearted,  honest,  and  keenly 
sympathetic  wife.  I  call  them  a  wonderful  couple. 
Spencer  thinks  she  is  the  greatest  woman  that  has 
lived  on  the  earth  —  the  female  Shakespeare,  so 
to  speak;  and  I  imagine  he  is  not  far  from  right. 
My  only  sorrow  is  that  the  afternoon  was  not  quite 
long  enough;  but  I  shall  go  there  again." 

485 


John  Fiske 


Thomas  Henry  Huxley 

Huxley  was  one  of  the  men  Fiske  was  most  de- 
sirous to  meet.  In  Fiske's  mind  there  were  four  men 
whose  several  labors  had  prepared  the  way  for  the 
theory  of  Evolution;  but  before  a  complete  system 
of  philosophy  could  be  developed  therefrom  their 
respective  labors  must  be  correlated  into  one  con- 
sistent whole.  These  were  Spencer,  Darwin,  Lewes, 
Huxley.  Of  these  four  men  Fiske  knew  Huxley  the 
least,  and  only  as  an  eminent  zoologist,  a  valiant 
defender  of  Darwinism,  and  as  a  bitter  opponent 
of  the  Positive  Philosophy  of  Comte. 

Fiske  first  met  Huxley  at  the  dinner  given  to 
Fiske  by  Spencer,  and  next  at  the  dinner  at  the  X 
Club;  and  from  this  time  forth  the  letters  overflow 
with  sketches  of  Huxley,  and  his  delightful  home 
surroundings.  After  the  dinner  at  the  X  Club  he 
writes  to  Mrs.  Fiske:  — 

"Huxley  seems  to  have  taken  a  great  fancy  to 
Hezzy.  He  devoted  himself  almost  exclusively  to 
me  during  the  evening,  and  we  had  one  of  the  best 
talks  that  two  poor  creeters  ever  succeeded  in 
getting  up  together.  What  a  treat  it  is  to  meet 
with  such  a  fine- tempered  mind!  and  none  the 
worse  for  having  a  handsome  face  to  reveal  itself 
through !" 

And  again  he  writes :  — 

"I  am  quite  wild  over  Huxley.  He  is  as  hand- 
some as  an  Apollo.  His  photograph  does  n't  begin 

486 


Sketch  of  Huxley 

to  do  him  justice.  I  never  before  saw  such  magnifi- 
cent eyes.  They  are  black,  and  his  face  expresses 
an  eager,  burning  intensity,  and  there  is  none  of 
that  self-satisfied  smirk  which  has  crept  into  the 
picture.  He  seems  earnest  —  immensely  in  earnest 
—  and  thoroughly  frank,  and  cordial,  and  modest. 
And,  by  Jove,  what  a  pleasure  it  is  to  meet  such  a 
clean-cut  mind!  It  is  like  Saladin's  sword  which 
cut  through  the  cushion.  When  we  parted  it  was  a 
heart-felt  grip  that  I  gave  his  hand,  I  can  tell  you. 
There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  he  is  a  grand  man,  and 
a  great  man,  too.  There  is  nothing  so  pleasant  as 
seeing  these  men  after  one  has  known  them  in  a 
shadowy  way  so  long.  Reading  their  books  doesn't 
give  you  the  flesh-and-blood  idea  of  them.  But  once 
to  see  such  a  man  as  Huxley  is  never  to  forget  him/' 

And  a  little  later  he  gives  the  following  account 
of  a  Sunday  evening  at  one  of  Mrs.  Huxley's  "  tall 
teas":  — 

"Then  I  went  to  Huxley's,  where  we  had  what 
he  calls  a  'tall  tea,'  i.e.,  on  Sunday  they  dine  early 
and  have  an  old-fashioned  tea  at  6.30  with  meat. 
Huxley's  house  is  the  nearest  to  an  earthly  para- 
dise of  anything  I  have  ever  seen.  .  .  .  After  tea 
Huxley  and  I  retired  to  his  study,  which  is  the 
cosiest  I  have  seen  in  England,  and  had  a  smoke 
and  the  very  best  talk  I  ever  had.  Words  can't 
describe  what  a  glorious  fellow  he  is.  Darwin  is  the 
only  man  I  have  seen  that  equals  him.  Spencer 
does  n't  begin  to.  And  then  Darwin  is  a  dear  old 
grandpa,  but  Huxley  is  a  younger  man,  not  over 
45  or  46,  I  think,1  and  so  I  feel  more  at  home  with 

1  He  was  forty-eight. 

487 


John  Fiske 

him.  He  is  very  much  interested  in  the  book,  and 
hopes  I  will  add  the  chapter  on  *  Matter  and  Spirit' 
which  I  have  been  mulling  for  a  year  back.  We 
had  a  splendid  talk  about  the  soul.  .  ,  .  And  when 
I  left,  Huxley  said  there  would  be  a  plate  set  for 
me  every  Sunday,  as  long  as  I  stay  in  London,  and 
it  will  be  my  own  fault  if  I  don't  come  and  use  it  — 
in  which  Mrs.  Huxley  joined.  And  I  must  say,  I 
never  met  more  warm-hearted,  loveable  people  in 
my  whole  life." 

-    To  his  mother  Fiske  writes:  — 

"December  nth,  I  went  to  a  great  dinner  of  the 
Royal  Society,  as  Huxley's  guest.  .  .  .  My  '  vio- 
lent' friendship  with  Huxley  began  that  evening. 
He  attracted  me  wonderfully  the  first  time  I  met 
him  at  Spencer's.  But  now  I  quite  lost  my  heart 
to  him.  The  next  Sunday  evening  I  began  going 
to  tea  at  his  house,  and  now  I  go  every  Sunday 
evening,  and  am  becoming  one  of  the  family.  It  is 
a  lovely  family.  Mrs.  Huxley  is  a  sweet,  motherly 
woman.  .  .  .  And  Huxley  is  such  an  immense- 
hearted  old  fellow!  Such  a  great,  all-embracing 
sympathy  about  him!  Such  tenderness,  such  ex- 
quisite delicacy,  such  truthfulness,  such  a  shrewd, 
sensible,  clear  head,  such  immense  and  accurate 
knowledge!  And  his  great  black  eyes  —  as  Charles 
Reade  says,  '  the  eye  of  a  hawk,  with  the  eye  of  a 
dove  beneath  it.1  I  never  saw  another  such  a  man 
as  Huxley,  and  everybody  warms  up  just  so  when 
I  express  my  opinion  of  him.  Sir  F.  Pollock  told 
me  the  other  day,  that  there  was  'enough  good- 
ness in  Huxley  to  make  all  England  Christian,  if 
it  could  only  be  parcelled  out,  and  distributed 
around.'  " 


Sketch  of  Huxley 

The  following  note  shows  the  cordial  relations 
which  existed  between  Fiske  and  the  whole  Hux- 
ley family:  — 

4  MARLBOROUGH  PLACE, 

December  26,  1873. 
My  dear  Fiske:  — 

I  have  a  great  mind  to  say  that  you  will  not  be 
welcome  at  Sunday's  "  tall  tea"  in  revenge  for  your 
entertaining  any  doubt  as  to  the  sufficiency  of  our 
general  invitation. 

But  it  would  be  too  big  a  lie  for  a  man  who  has 
not  had  the  advantage  of  being  brought  up  in  a 
pious  family.  Also  I  am  prepared  to  play  third 
person  competent  or  otherwise  as  the  case  may  be. 
Have  you  anything  to  do  on  New  Year's  Day? 
I  mean  to  interfere  with  your  dining  with  us.  If 
not  it  will  give  us  great  pleasure  to  see  you. 

Any  time  these  eighteen  years,  with  hardly  a 
break,  Spencer  and  Tyndall  have  dined  with  us  on 
that  day,  and  we  mean  to  hold  high  feast  this  year 
to  contrast  with  the  last  two  occasions  when  I  have 
been  wretchedly  ill. 

With  the  best  regards  and  good  wishes  from  all 
of  us, 

Believe  me, 

Yours  very  faithfully, 

T.  H.  HUXLEY. 

Fiske  accepted  Huxley's  invitation  to  a  New 
Year's  dinner,  where  he  had  the  pleasure  of  meet- 
ing Spencer,  Tyndall,  Michael  Foster,  and  others, 
around  Huxley's  hospitable  board. 

These  sketches  of  Huxley  may  well  close  with  an 
incident  in  Fiske's  own  experience  which  he  re- 

489 


John  Fiske 

lated  at  one  of  the  Sunday  "tall  teas"  to  the  great 
amusement  of  the  whole  Huxley  family.  On  one  of 
his  trips  to  New  York,  Fiske  fell  in  with  an  Eng- 
lishman who  expressed  much  surprise  at  the  great 
interest  Americans  seemed  to  take  in  the  scientific 
thought  of  Spencer,  Darwin,  Tyndall,  Lyell,  etc. 
On  Fiske' s  mentioning  Huxley  as  one  of  the  leaders 
in  the  new  movement,  the  Englishman  broke  out: 
11  What,  'Uxley!  'orrid  old  hinfidel!  Why,  we  don't 
think  hany 'think  of  'im  in  Hingland.  We  think  'e's 
'orrid.  You  don't  say  you  hadmire  'Uxley?  'E's 
perfectly  'orrid!" 

Sir  Charles  Lyell 

Among  the  eminent  men  of  science  no  one  was 
at  this  time  held  in  higher  honor  in  England  than 
Sir  Charles  Lyell,  the  venerable  geologist,  whose 
life  was  now  drawing  to  a  close  after  fifty  years 
devoted  to  the  advancement  of  geologic  science. 
Fiske  was  perfectly  familiar  with  Lyell's  geological 
writings.  They  had  been  stepping-stones  to  his 
own  comprehension  of  the  cosmic  universe.  He 
was  no  less  acquainted  with  the  facts  connected 
with  Lyell's  valiant  stand  in  support  of  Darwin, 
on  the  publication  of  the  latter's  "Origin  of  Spe- 
cies"; as  well  as  with  his  recantation  of  previous 
views  in  regard  to  the  antiquity  of  man,  occasioned 
by  his  acceptance  of  Darwin's  theory  of  natural 
selection  as  a  vera  causa  of  the  multifarious  forms 
of  the  organic  life  of  the  globe. 

490 


SIR   CHARLES   LYELL 


Sketch  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell 

In  Fiske's  mind  Lyell  appeared  as  one  of  the 
advanced  guard  of  scientists,  who,  in  the  face  of 
theologic  ignorance  and  prejudice,  had  added  im- 
mensely to  the  boundaries  of  human  knowledge, 
while  increasing  in  men's  minds  a  reverence  for 
the  profound  mystery  that  lies  beyond.  Accord- 
ingly, on  the  22d  of  December,  1873,  he  paid  his 
respects  to  Sir  Charles  by  calling,  being  presented 
by  his  friend  Conway. 

Of  this  memorable  interview  he  writes  to  Mrs. 
Fiske  the  same  day  as  follows:  — 

"This  afternoon  Conway  and  I  called  on  Sir 
Charles  Lyell.  Think  what  an  event  in  one's  life, 
my  dear!  Here  is  this  old  man  whose  great  work 
was  really  done  forty- four  years  ago,  when  grandma 
Stoughton  was  a  little  girl  like  Maudie,  when  Comte 
was  a  young  fellow  like  Hezzy,  and  Darwin  a  boy 
in  college,  and  Spencer  a  boy  nine  years  old.  Away 
back  in  those  days  he  laid  the  foundations  of  a 
work  so  great  and  strong,  that  his  name  will  here- 
after hold  the  same  place  in  geology  forever,  that 
Newton's  holds  in  astronomy.  Scouted  at  in  the 
beginning,  he  has  lived  to  witness  his  own  immor- 
tality —  to  see  all  men  adopting  as  self-evident 
the  truths  which  he  was  the  first  to  discover.  A 
rare  good  fortune  for  a  man!  To  see  him  was  like 
looking  at  an  age  gone  by.  He  is  probably  from  80 
to  85  years  old.1  He  cannot  see  much  of  anything, 
and  walks  with  difficulty.  He  was  glad  to  lean  on 
my  arm  in  getting  to  his  easy-chair  before  the  fire. 
We  sat  an  hour  before  the  bright  fire  in  his  lovely 

1  He  was  eighty-six. 
491 


John  Fiske 

obally,1  aad  talked  about  "many  things.  His  mind 
is  as  clear  and  clean-cut  as  ever  —  no  nonsense 
about  him.  And  such  exquisite  politeness!  Such 
a  well-bred,  courteous,  sweet  old  man!  How  ten- 
derly he  spoke  of  Agassiz  (who  had  just  died)  and 
with  how  much  appreciation  of  his  son  Alexander 
Agassiz,  whom  he  hoped  to  see  elected  to  his 
father's  place.  He  had  dim  and  amusing  recollec- 
tions of  old  Dr.  Barratt,  of  Middletown,2  but  was 
not  very  sure  on  the  subject.  He  was  as  keenly 
curious  of  all  new  things  as  a  young  man,  but 
owned  that  he  reads  nothing  now-a-days;  and  he 
said  in  a  delicate  way,  that  since  Lady  Lyell's 
death,  he  did  n't  get  much  of  the  good  flavor  of 
life.  He  reminds  me  very  much  of.  Darwin  —  the 
same  gentleness,  the  same  keenness  of  glance ;  the 
same  precision  of  mind,  the  same  kingly  demean- 
our. It  was  a  great  event  in  Hezzy's  life  —  a  thing 
to  tell  the  babies  of  years  hence,  when  they  have 
grown  up.  I  am  so  glad  to  have  seen  the  dear  old 
man,  and  had  him  lean  on  me.  He  may  die  of  old 
age  almost  any  day.3  And  still  his  mind  is  just  as 
young,  just  as  jolly  as  ever.  Conway  did  n't  say 
much,  leaving  the  field  to  me;  but  when  we  had 
got  away,  he  broke  out  with  his  admiration,  and 
our  tongues  ran  pretty  fast  until  we  got  to  where 
our  roads  diverged. 

And  here  these  interesting  personal  sketches  for 
the  present  must  close. 

1  His  children's  nickname  for  library. 

*  A  former  pupil  of  Lyell's.  3  He  died  February  22,  1875. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HIS  CONTINENTAL  JOURNEY  —  HIS  ORIGINAL  PLAN 
AND  WHY  CURTAILED  —  HIS  BRIEF  STOP  IN  PARIS 
AND  HIS  HASTY  RUN  THROUGH  FRANCE  —  HIS 
FOUR  WEEKS  IN  ITALY  —  SWITZERLAND  VIA  MONT 
CENIS  —  LES  CHARMETTES,  FERNEY,  GENEVA  — 
ROUSSEAU,  VOLTAIRE — IMPRESSIONS  OF  SWITZ- 
ERLAND—  DOWN  THE  RHINE  TO  BELGIUM  —  BAC£ 
IN  LONDON — FAREWELL  VISITS 

1873-1874 

FISKE'S  plan  for  his  Continental  journey,  which  he 
had  worked  out  in  all  details  before  he  left  home, 
was  a  comprehensive  one,  and  it  embraced  visits 
to  the  chief  countries,  and  places  of  historic  interest. 
The  trip  was  to  begin  December  20,  1873,  and  was 
to  take  nearly  eight  months'  time.  The  plan  in- 
cluded a  visit  to  Constantinople  and  Athens.  To 
each  country  was  allotted  a  definite  portion  of  the 
time  —  one  month  was  to  be  given  to  France ;  two 
months  to  Italy;  three  weeks  to  Constantinople 
and  Athens;  three  and  a  half  weeks  to  Austria;  six 
weeks  to  Germany ;  one  month  to  Switzerland ;  one 
week  to  the  Rhine;  and  two  weeks  to  Belgium  and 
Holland.  With  what  we  know  of  his  historic  and 
philosophic  interests,  the  underlying  purpose  of  this 
journey,  so  definitely  planned,  is  apparent.  He 
wished  to  observe  Continental  Europe  with  all  the 
concomitants  of  modern  life,  surrounded  with  the 

493 


John  Fiske 

vestiges  of  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  civilizations, 
out  of  which  the  present  social  and  political  condi- 
tions have  grown. 

'  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  carefully  planned 
journey  was  not  carried  out,  for  a  series  of  letters 
from  him,  giving  his  observations  under  condi- 
tions which  brought  substantially  all  Continental 
history  within  his  purview,  would  have  been  a  per- 
manent addition  to  literature  —  and  he  certainly 
would  have  written  such  letters.  But  his  stay  in 
England  to  finish  his  book  had  been  prolonged  two 
months  beyond  the  allotted  period,  thus  mate- 
rially shortening  his  available  time  for  the  Conti- 
nent; and  besides,  when  he  was  ready  to  leave 
England,  he  had  been  over  six  months  from  home, 
and  was  terribly  homesick. 

This  home-longing,  this  feeling  of  loneliness 
when  separated  for  any  length  of  time  from  his 
family,  was  a  personal  characteristic  we  have  had 
occasion  to  notice  in  previous  years,  and  we  shall 
also  have  occasion  to  note  it  in  years  to  come.  On 
the  present  occasion  this  loneliness  became  almost 
a  veritable  disease,  and  his  longing  to  get  home  be- 
came so  great  that  it  led  him  to  cut  down  his  Con- 
tinental journey  to  a  period  of  about  ten  weeks,  a 
limitation  of  time  which  only  admitted  a  hasty 
run  through  France,  Italy,  and  Switzerland,  a 
mere  glance  at  the  Rhenish  provinces  of  Germany, 
with  a  very  few  days  given  to  Belgium. 

Then,  too,  no  small  portion  of  his  time  when  not 

494 


His  Continental  Journey- 
travelling  was  taken  up  with  revising  his  "proofs, 
writing  the  preface,  and  indexing  his  forthcom- 
ing work,  so  that  his  letters  are  not  as  full  of  "  im- 
pressions "  as  might  be  desired.  He  took  pains, 
however,  to  gather  photographs,  as  far  as  possible, 
of  the  principal  objects  of  interest  to  him,  and  on 
his  return  he  consecutively  arranged  these  photo- 
graphs in  an  album,  so  that  we  have  his  journey, 
brief  as  it  was,  quite  copiously  illustrated,  as  it 
were,  by  his  own  hand.  And  it  will  be  noted  that 
he  left  England  deeply  in  love  with  the  English 
people,  and  their  ways;  and  that  throughout  his 
journey  he  seemed  to  carry  with  him  a  sort  of  Eng- 
lish social  yardstick,  filled  out  with  subsidiary 
American  notations,  with  which  he  measured  the 
social  life  of  the  Continental  peoples  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact:  in  short,  he  gives,  in  a  way, 
the  impression  of  a  highly  cultivated  American 
John  Bull  on  his  travels. 

A  word  in  regard  to  the  free,  colloquial  style  of 
his  letters.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  as  has  been 
noted  in  regard  to  his  English  letters,  that  they 
were  written  for  the  privacy  of  his  own  family,  with 
no  thought  that  they  would  ever  be  submitted  for 
publication.  Consequently,  they  abound  with 
sobriquets  of  the  different  members  of  the  fam- 
ily, together  with  familiar  childish  forms  of  expres- 
sion, full  of  "local  color"  and  well  understood  in 
his  home.  To  remove  these  reflections  of  his  happy 
home  life,  these  evidences  also  of  the  tender  work- 

495 


John  Fiske 

ings  of  his  own  mind,  from  even  the  serious  por- 
tions of  the  letters,  would  take  from  the  letters 
themselves  much  of  their  individual  character  and 
charm.  His  story  is  best  told  in  his  own  way.  * 

Notwithstanding  the  rapidity  with  which  he 
travelled  and  his  greatly  preoccupied  mind,  his 
Continental  letters,  and  his  photographs,  reveal 
three  subjective  lines  of  thought  called  forth  by 
his  observations  —  his  great  interest  in  the  re- 
mains of  the  ancient  architecture  and  civilization; 
his  profound  admiration  for  Gothic  architecture, 
and  his  seeming  indifference  to  Renaissance  archi- 
tecture, and  Renaissance  painting.  In  these  archi- 
tectural predilections,  we  get  another  glimpse  of 
his  religious  nature  and  the  inherent  catholicity  of 
his  mind  which  we  have  already  noted  in  his  musi- 
cal predilections  and  creations.  No  philosophic 
aversion  to  Christian  theology  could  close  his  mind 
to  the  beauty,  the  sublime  spiritual  impressive- 
ness  of  Gothic  art.  It  is  a  fair  inference  that  in 
Gothic  architecture,  as  in  the  great  Christian  ora- 
torios, he  saw,  he  felt,  man's  spiritual  instinct  of 
love  and  aspiration  to  a  Divine  Creator  welling  up 
from  the  very  heart  of  the  race,  bursting  through 
the  bonds  of  dogmatic  theology,  and  asserting  the 
everlasting  reality  of  man's  religious  nature.  In 
Renaissance  architecture  he  saw  only  a  misap- 
plied reflection  of  the  greater  art  of  ancient  imperial 
Rome.  As  the  Renaissance  period  was  the  begin- 
ning of  modern  civilization,  a  phase  of  civilization 

496 


His  Continental  Journey 

the  foundations  of  which  are  laid  in  a  form  of  social 
order,  based  on  the  democratic  idea,  which  is  yet 
in  a  process  of  development  to  the  complete  en- 
franchisement of  man,  he  saw  in  Renaissance 
architecture  only  an  attempt  to  give  architectural 
expression  to  the  new  order  of  thought  in  an  imita- 
tive, in  a  wholly  incongruous  way.  His  general 
unresponsiveness  to  Renaissance  painting,  I  have 
noted  in  connection  with  his  visits  to  the  Louvre 
in  Paris,  and  to  the  Uffizi  and  Pitti  galleries  in 
Florence. 

The  Continental  letters  begin  with  a  brief  one 
from  Dieppe,  wherein  he  gives  a  sketch  of  his  last 
day  in  England,  spent  at  Brighton,  and  where  he 
found  his  greatest  interest  in  the  famous  Brighton 
Aquarium.  Here  is  one  observation:  — 

"  I  devoted  three  full  hours  to  the  octopus  tank! 
The  octopus  (cuttlefish)  beats  the  chimpanzee  all 
hollow.  If  the  chimpanzee  looks  like  a  man,  the 
octopus  looks  like  nothing  but  the  Devil.  There 
are  nine  of  'em  in  one  tank — absolutely  diabolical 
monsters!  I  am  going  to  write  Huxley  about  the 
octopus. " 

He  was  not  at  all  seasick  in  crossing  the  Channel, 
and  he  found  the  temperature  of  France  much 
colder  than  that  of  England.  On  his  way  to  Paris 
he  stopped  four  hours  at  Rouen,  the  richest  of  the 
cities  of  France,  in  mediaeval  architecture,  par- 
ticularly to  see  its  three  famous  examples  of  the 
Gothic  style  —  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame, 

497 


John  Fiske 

the  Church  or  Cathedral  of  St.  Ouen,  —  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  buildings  in  the  world,  —  and  the 
Church  of  St.  Marclou.  He  did  not  make  any  notes 
on  these  fine  buildings,  but  from  the  photographs 
he  gathered  of  their  special  points  of  interest,  it  is 
evident  that  he  was  impressed  with  the  differences 
between  the  English  and  the  French  rendering  of 
the  Gothic  style.  He  wandered  about,  without  a 
guide,  until  he  reached  Mont  St.  Catherine,  one 
of  the  environs  of  the  city,  from  which  he  had  a 
general  view  which  he  briefly  describes:  — 

11  No  pen  could  do  justice  to  the  magnificence  of 
the  view,  comprising  the  old  city,  the  two  giant 
cathedrals,  the  winding  river  and  miles  of  flat  and 
rolling  country  round  about,  —  all  in  a  blaze  of 
sunlight,  and  gorgeous  tents  of  cloud." 

On  reaching  Paris,  February  22,  1874,  ne  went 
to  the  H6tel  de  Rivoli,  just  opposite  the  Tuileries. 
His  first  impressions  were  forbidding:  -•-  j 

"I  am  up  6  flights  of  stairs  in  a  bleak,  inhospit- 
able little  room.  Nobody  in  the  hotel  understands 
a  word  of  English,  except  the  proprietor.  There  is 
one  German  waiter  whom  I  fall  back  on  when  I 
want  an  interpreter,  for  I  can  get  along  much  bet- 
ter with  German  than  with  French.  Everything 
looks  bare  and  inhospitable  here,  after  cosy  old 
England.  Instead  of  carpets,  and  warm  fires,  and 
chops  and  ale,  they  run  to  glass  and  gilding  and 
sardines  and  claret.  It  is  colder  than  in  London, 
anyway.  There  is  a  bright  sun,  which  is  one  good 

498 


Impressions  of  Paris 

thing;  but  the  streets  don't  seem  so  cheerful  as  in 
London." 

After  two  days'  experience  things  look  better,  and 
on  February  24  he  writes: — 

"Which  I  will  now  change  my  tone,  and  will  not 
blackguard  poor  Paris.  I  am  now  writing  out-of- 
doors  (!)  at  a  little  round  table  in  front  of  a  cafe  in 
a  sort  of  triangular  square  just  out  of  the  Rue  St. 
Honore  near  the  Louvre:  before  me,  a  glass  of  black 
Bavarian  beer,  which  is  better  than  claret,  though 
not  equal  to  the  peerless  Bass.  I  correct  my  proofs 
and  write '  tezzletelts '  [letters]  in  similar  places,  be- 
cause there  is  no  attractive  place  in-doors.  I  don't 
like  it  as  well  as  an  English  fireside ;  but  it  is  a  new 
experience,  and  that  is  what  I  came  here  for.  One 
can't  have  London  everywhere,  and  so  I  will  freely 
confess  that  Paris  is  very  charming.  I  never  could 
get  to  like  it  so  well  as  London  though.  My  tastes 
are  out  and  out  Teutonic." 

Fiske  spent  nine  days  in  Paris,  chiefly,  as  he  says, 
in  tramping  around  and  seeing  things:  — 

"I  saw  the  whole  inside  of  the  Louvre,  and 
Palais  de  Luxembourg,  H6tel  de  Cluny,  Sainte 
Chapelle,  Notre  Dame,  Pantheon,  and  heaps  else; 
and  *  parcourired '  the  whole  of  the  Boulevards  in 
all  directions,  and  geographized  the  town  generally, 
and  spent  a  whole  day  at  Versailles  —  which  is 
better  than  anything  in  Paris.  I  made  it  a  point  to 
walk  up  and  down  the  Seine  every  day  whatever 
else  I  did.  The  views  on  the  Seine  are  exceedingly 
beautiful.  The  Seine  is  prettier  than  the  Thames; 
but  I  prefer  the  grand  views,  up  and  down,  from 

499 


John  Fiske 

Waterloo  Bridge,  to  anything  here.  There  is  a 
grandeur  about  London  which  one  misses  here, 
though  this  is  more  beautiful.  Perhaps  it  looks  a 
little  like  New  York  —  I  am  not  quite  sure." 

He  seems  not  to  have  been  specially  impressed 
with  the  pictures  in  the  Louvre.  I  find  it  difficult 
to  account  for  this  fact,  as  he  was  usually  so  respon- 
sive to  great  art  in  any  of  its  forms  of  manifesta- 
tion. Rewrites: —  •,.«  -  ~  ?rv:^  ^ 

"I  have  spent  the  whole  blessed  day  in  the 
Louvre,  and  have  seen  more  things  than  I  can  ever 
remember.  I  revelled  in  the  sculptures,  and  an- 
tiques, but  was  rather  disappointed  with  the  paint- 
ings. Did  n't  see  anything  comparable  to  the 
Raphael  Cartoons  at  South  Kensington."  ,  „ 

Fiske's  love  of  Gothic  architecture,  of  course, 
took  him  to  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  and  to 
"  La  Sainte  Chapelle."  He  makes  no  comments 
on  these  historic  buildings,  but  he  sends  several 
photographs  of  their  details. 

Of  his  visit  to  the  great  library  he  speaks  thus: 

''Of  course  I  went  to  the  great  library  in  Paris, 
and  got  posted  as  to  their  tricks  and  manners.  I 
think  old  Ezra  Abbot  knows  more  than  the  whole 
of  'em." 

And  here  is  a  remark  he  drops  by  the  way  in  his 
Paris  letter:  — 

"The  manners  of  the  French  are  certainly  very 
charming  —  especially  the  common  people." 

500 


Hasty  Run  through  France 

From  Paris  he  went  to  Lyons,  where  he  stopped 
one  day,  and  tramped  all  over  the  town  seeing 
the  chief  things,  and  where  he  also  had  a  lovely 
little  trip  in  a  wee  steamer  on  the  Saone. 

His  next  stop  was  at  Avignon,  where  he  was 
pleased  to  find  the  peach  trees  in  blossom.  One 
day  was  given  to  visiting  the  points  of  interest  in 
this  historic  city,  which  was  for  nearly  seventy 
years  —  1309-1377  —  the  residence  of  the  Popes 
of  Rome  and  where  remains  of  their  palaces  still 
exist.  As  notes  for  his  "impressions"  of  this  his- 
toric place  he  sent  photographs  of  the  remains  of 
an  old  Roman  bridge,  as  well  as  of  the  castle  of  the 
Popes. 

At  Avignon,  being  so  near  to  Nismes,  he  turned 
aside  to  take  a  look  at  the  many  memorials  of  the 
ancient  civilization  which  are  here  so  well  preserved. 
First  he  went  to  see  the  great  Roman  aqueduct,  the 
Pont  du  Card,  probably  constructed  by  Vipsanius 
Agrippa  in  the  time  of  Augustus  for  conveying 
water  to  Nismes;  and  then  he  went  to  Nismes  it- 
self. And  here  he  was  for  the  first  time  in  his  own 
experience  brought  into  direct  contact  with  some 
of  the  impressive  remains  of  the  civilization  of  the 
ancient  world  with  the  history  of  which  he  was  so 
familiar.  Of  his  visit  to  the  Pont  du  Card  and  to 
Nismes  he  writes:  — 

"The  Pont  du  Card  alone  was  worth  coming  to 
France  for;  but  as  I  can't  describe  it  you  must  wait 
till  you  see  the  'pickerwow'  which  won't  help  you 

501 


John  Fiske 

much.  The  country  round  about  looks  like  Peters- 
ham, only  far  inferior. 

"  Next  day  I  went  to  Nismes  which  is  well  worth 
seeing.  You  may  believe  I  was  beset  by  cicerones 
till  I  lost  my  patience  and  told  them  'Allez  au 
diable,'  and  finally  lifted  my  umbrella  at  one  of 
'em  whereupon  they  all  Allez!  Relieved  of  these 
pests,  I  serenely  walked  straight  to  the  Amphi- 
theatre —  which  is  smaller  than  the  Colosseum  at 
Rome,  but  completely  preserved.  It  is  very  fine. 
As  I  sat  on  one  of  the  tiers  basking  in  a  southern 
sun  (in  about  the  latitude  of  Portland,  Maine)  and 
trying  to  imagine  how  an  old  fight  would  have 
looked,  a  real  fight  was  kindly  gotten  up  for  my 
benefit.  Some  workmen,  with  trowels,  etc.,  were 
making  a  few  repairs  in  the  arena.  Which  two  of 
'em  began  to  call  each  other  'bete/  'imbecile/  etc., 
and  shrugged  their  shoulders  until  their  heads  were 
half  hid,  and  pounded  and  clawed  the  air,  and  be- 
gan to  make  allusions  to  each  other's  mother,  when 
one  of  'em  threw  his  trowel  at  the  other,  and  hit 
the  other  on  the  chin,  whereat  the  hittee  retorted 
by  jabbing  a  big  sort  of  trident  into  his  assailant's 
forehead.  Blood  ran  briskly ;  and  the  wounded  man 
began  to  scream1,  when  other  workmen  came  up  and 
separated 'em.  Bah!" 

From  Nismes  Fiske  went  to  Florence  by  way  of 
Nice,  Genoa,  and  Pisa. 

His  first  impression  of  Florence  he  gives  in  a  let- 
ter to  Mrs.  Fiske  of  March  20,  1874:  — 

"  If  you  want  to  know  how  Florence  seems,  read 
the  first  chapter  of  'Romola/1  where  the  old  chap 

1  The  "Proem"  to  George  Eliot's  great  novel  Romola. 
5<>2 


In  Florence 

is  standing  on  San  Miniato.  I  have  been  there  twice. 
Next  to  Edinburgh,  and  Oxford,  it  is  the  finest  city 
I  have  seen.  I  have  been  around  and  seen  the  out- 
side of  almost  every  thing,  and  the  inside  of  some 
things.  To-day,  I  did  the  Uffizi,  and  to-morrow, 
I  do  the  Pitti  Gallery.1  .  .  . 

11 1  can  get  along  in  talking  without  any  trouble, 
for  most  folks  do  understand  French  after  all,  I  find, 
and  on  a  pinch  I  can  talk  Italian.  My  greatest 
achievement  in  linguistics,  was  yesterday,  when  I 
went  to  the  Biblioteca  Nazionale  and  found  there 
was  n't  a  man  there  who  knew  a  word  of  English, 
except  to  read  it!  !  !  Well,  darn  you,  said  I,  if 
you  can't  talk  English,  I  '11  talk  French,  which  I  did 
glibly  for  two  hours,  inquiring  into  all  the  details 
of  their  cataloguing,  treatment  of  pamphlets,  etc., 
etc.,  and  getting  some  really  good  ideas  out  of 
'em.  But  I  could  n't  have  talked  French  to  them 
if  they  had  understood  English." 

Fiske  remained  in  Florence  thirteen  days  and  he 
gives  these  further  details  of  his  observations  and 
experiences:  — 

"Visited  the  interior  of  San  Marco,  and  the 
Annunziata.  These  churches  did  not  impress  me, 
though  the  outside  of  the  Cathedral  is  superb. 
The  Campanile  or  bell-tower  by  Giotto  is  the  most 
perfect  thing,  the  most  beautiful  building  I  have 

1  It  seems  impossible  that,  with  his  artistic  nature  and  his  his- 
toric appreciation,  he  could  visit  these  galleries  without  being  pro- 
foundly impressed.  His  graphic  sketch  of  the  Sacconi  picture  in 
La  Certosa  Monastery  leads  us  to  think  that  in  these  two  marvel- 
lous collections  of  masterpieces  of  ancient  and  modern  art,  he  must 
have  been  quite  overpowered.  Certainly  his  was  the  mind  to  appre- 
ciate the  full  significance  of  what  is  here  gathered  as  representative 
of  the  highest  products  of  human  civilization. 

503 


John  Fiske 

ever  seen,  and  the  bronze  gates  of  the  Baptistry, 
by  Ghiberti,  are  marvellous  beyond  description. 
Altogether  Florence  is  a  wonderful  place. .  . . 

"  Sunday  afternoon,  I  went  out  to  La  Certosa,  a 
Carthusian  monastery  about  two  miles  from  the 
city.  It  was  a  gorgeous  day.  The  monastery  stands 
on  a  high  hill  from  which  you  get  a  magnificent 
view  of  Florence,  and  all  its  surroundings.  They 
are  very  strict  there.  No  woman  is  allowed  even 
to  come  and  look  at  the  premises.  An  old  monk, 
with  a  coarse  white  dress  that  looked  as  if  made  of 
dingy  crash,  and  which  covered  him  from  head  to 
foot,  escorted  us  around  and  showed  us  the  things. 
In  the  crypts  are  some  fine  tombs  by  Donatello; 
and  in  one  of  the  chapels  a  great  painting,  (though 
quaint)  by  Giotto.  But  what  pleased  me  most  was 
a  painting  by  Sacconi,  representing  a  thinker  tired 
and  overwhelmed  with  the  mystery  of  the  prob- 
lem of  existence,  his  book  dropped  from  one  hand 
which  lies  idly  across  the  knee,  while  the  other 
hand  supports  the  cheek,  the  elbow  resting  on  the 
table.  His  eyes  are  half  closed,  as  if  in  profound- 
est  reverie.  All  this  is  as  realistic  as  if  done  yester- 
day —  it  is  just  like  real  flesh  and  blood.  But  up 
in  the  right-hand  foreground,  wrapped  in  a  cloud- 
like  mystery,  are  dim  forms  of  archangels,  their 
faces  full  of  sublime  sympathy,  looking  down  upon 
the  wearied  thinker,  while  yet  beyond  is  I-know- 
not-what  in  the  colouring,  something  utterly  mys- 
terious, suggesting  ineffable  light,  and  glory  like 
the  triumphant  final  allegro  of  Schumann's  fourth 
symphony.  Something  that  seemed  to  say  —  the 
riddle  is  hard,  but  behind  the  veil  is  an  answer 
yet.  I  do  not  know  what  the  painter  intended, 

504 


In  Florence 

by  the  picture,  but  this  is  what  it  meant  to  me.  It 
quite  overcame  me  and  brought  the  tears.  The 
painting  was  masterly,  both  in  drawing,  and  in 
colouring.  I  do  not  know  who  Sacconi  was,  and 
no  one  seems  to  know  unless  it  was  one  of  the 
names  of  Andrea  del  Sarto,  but  this  picture  is 
hardly  in  his  style,  so  they  say.  I  have  got  a  book 
at  home,  which  I  think  will  clear  the  matter  up.1 

"I  saw  the  refectory,  the  rooms  where  Pius  VI 
used  to  live,  the  cells  where  the  monks  live :  there  is 
a  monk  there  now  who  has  n't  left  his  cell  for  28 
years  except  to  step  out  into  the  enclosed  garden. 
I  lingered  long  in  this  garden,  and  found  it  hard  to 
tear  myself  away.  You  know  the  little  picture  — 
'Disce  ut  semper  victurus,  vive  ut  crasmoriturus'2 
which  I  like  so  much.  The  same  air  of  profound 
rest  is  all  about  this  monastery-garden.  In  the 
centre  of  it  is  a  lovely  well,  built  by  Michael  An- 
gelo,  who  seems  to  have  been  everywhere,  and  to 
have  done  everything,  indomitable  worker  that  he 
was.  The  monks  make  delicious  chartreuse  —  and 
I  bought  a  flask  of  it  to  bring  home.  .  .  . 

"  I  drove  to  the  cemetery  where  Theodore  Parker 
is  buried,  and  there  I  also  saw  the  graves  of  Mrs. 
Browning,  and  Walter  Savage  Landor.  Why  Par- 
ker should  have  gone  to  Florence  for  his  consump- 
tion, I  cannot  imagine.  He  might  as  well  have 
staid  in  Boston.  The  Italian  climate  is  excessively 
bad,  for  catching  cold,  and  the  Italians  have  a 
great  deal  of  consumption,  and  bronchitis.  .  .  . 

"  *  Hezzy '  is  having  an  awfully  good  time  here  in 
Florence.  It  is  a  charming  place.  I  spent  a  truly 

1  Carlo  Sacconi  was  a  draughtsman  who  lived  in  Florence  about 
1718.    He  prepared  many  drawings  for  Florentine  Gallery  work. 

2  Fiske  had  this  line  inscribed  over  the  fire-place  in  his  library. 

505 


John  Fiske 

delightful  evening  last  evening  at  Larkin  Mead's.1 
He  is  one  of  the  gentlest  and  sweetest  fellows  I  ever 
saw.  I  am  really  enchanted  with  him.  He  looks 
just  like  Mrs.  Howells.  I  should  have  known  him 
for  her  brother,  if  I  had  stumbled  on  him  in  the 
interior  of  Australia." 

This  Florence  letter  contains  a  brief  summing- 
up  of  his  impressions  thus  far  of  his  Continental 
journey:  — 

"How  do  I  like  the  Continent  on  the  whole? 
Well,  it  is  all  very  pretty  to  look  at,  but  beastly  un- 
comfortable, inhospitable,  cold,  dreary,  and  gloomy. 
I  don't  cotton  to  the  French  people,  or  to  the  Ital- 
ians. I  feel  lonesome  all  the  time,  and  homesick 
for  London;  and  to  be  honest,  I  don't  enjoy  this 
trip  nearly  as  much  as  I  did  the  trip  to  Scotland; 
for  I  love  the  Scotch." 

In  one  of  her  letters,  Mrs.  Fiske  had  intimated 
that  he  had  never  seen  Petersham  in  the  resplend- 
ent glories  of  its  October  foliage;  whereupon  he 
promptly  gives,  from  memory,  the  date  and  du- 
ration of  every  visit  to  Petersham,  since  his 
memorable  first  visit  September  13-18,  1861,  — 
twenty-four  in  number.  To  this  list  he  adds 
these  remarks  — 

"There,  Mrs.  Fiske,  if  you  can  diskiver  any 
month  of  the  year  that  is  n't  represented,  you  are 
smarter  than  Hezekiah.  But  by  Jove,  we  will  go 
up  for  a  day  or  two  next  October,  and  see  autumn 

1  Larkin  G.  Mead,  an  eminent  American  sculptor,  lived  in  Flor- 
ence. The  wife  of  William  Dean  Howells  was  his  sister. 


In  Rome 

leaves.  The  reason  they  don't  have  bright  au- 
tumn leaves  in  Europe,  is  because  they  don't 
have  maples  of  course!  The  woodbine,  imported 
into  England,  turns  just  as  bright  red  as  at  home. 
We  can  beat  all  Europe  (out  of  its  boots)  on  trees." 

On  March  24  he  left  Florence  for  Rome,  via 
Perugia. 

Fiske  was  in  Rome  four  days,  during  which 
time  he  visited  some  twenty-five  of  the  more 
noted  buildings  and  places  of  interest.  The  list, 
of  course,  includes  the  Piazza,  del  Popolo,  the  Corso, 
several  churches,  the  Forum  of  Trajan,  the  great 
Forum,  the  Colosseum,  the  Tarpeian  Rock,  the 
arches  of  Severus,  Titus,  and  Constantine,  the 
palaces  of  the  Caesars  and  of  Nero,  the  Marmentine 
Prison,  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,  the  Catacombs,  the 
Appian  Way,  and  the  statues  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 
Castor  and  Pollux,  Michael  Angelo's  Moses,  etc. 

It  appears  from  his  records  that  his  visits  to 
these  memorable  places,  buildings,  etc.,  in  this 
"Niobe  of  Nations,"  were  devoid  of  any  notable 
experiences.  It  also  appears  that  his  observations 
did  not  at  the  time  stir  his  mind  to  much  activity 
in  the  way  of  critical  or  philosophic  reflections,  yet 
we  must  suppose  that  it  was  intensely  active  in 
both  directions. 

The  two  bits  of  artistic  criticism  in  which  he 
indulged  were  in  regard  to  the  Catacombs  and  the 
works  of  Michael  Angelo.  Referring  to  the  former 
he  says:  — 

507 


John  Fiske 

"  There  is  nothing  interesting  there  except  to 
say  that  you  have  seen  them.  The  bug-a-boo  feel- 
ing is  perhaps  the  chief  attraction.  To  be  sure, 
there  are  frescoes  —  grotesque  enough,  too.  I  saw 
the  whale  casting  up  Jonah,  —  a  very  sea-sick  look- 
ing monster. " 

Fiske's  first  reference  to  Michael  Angelo  is  in 
connection  with  his  visit  to  the  tomb  of  S.  Pietro 
in  Vincole,  where  he  saw  Michael  Angelo's  Moses, 
which  he  pronounces  a  "wonderful,  wonderful 
statue."  And  again,  after  visiting  Sta.  Maria  degli 
Angeli,  built  by  Michael  Angelo  out  of  a  part  of 
the  Baths  of  Diocletian  just  behind,  he  says:  — 

"  It  is  a  grand  church  built  by  a  great  architect; 
but  in  architecture  M.  Angelo  is  surpassed  by 
nameless  builders  of  Gothic,  as  in  sculpture  he  is 
surpassed  by  nameless  Greeks.  I  am  not  impressed 
with  Italian  churches  generally,  they  are  too  pagan, 
gaudy  affairs.  York  Minster  for  me,  before  the 
whole  of  'em,  tho'  I  have  n't  seen  St.  Peter's  yet" 

On  March  29  Fiske  left  Rome  with  his  friend 
Adkins  —  an  English  traveller  he  had  met  in  Rome 
—  for  a  six  days'  trip  to  Naples.  He  writes:  — 

"Left  Rome  at  9.40  and  reached  Naples  at  5  P.M. 
Adkins  and  I  were  put  into  a  double-bedded  room, 
up  one  flight.  It  is  a  fine  room  with  sofa,  easy-chairs, 
large  writing-table,  etc.,  and  Brussels  carpet.    I 
could  easily  throw  a  stone  from  my  window  into 
the  sea.   Magnificent  situation,  and  the  most  com- 
fortable hotel  I  have  found  on  the  Continent.1  And 
1  Evidently  the  Hdtel  cTAngleterre. 
508 


Naples  and  Vicinity- 
why?  Because  it  is  patronized  almost  entirely  by 
grumbling  Englishmen,  who  will  have  what  they 
want.  Every  one  here  is  a  Britisher  except  Heze- 
kiah,  and  one  Hindu  —  a  Brahman,  who  took  hon- 
ours at  Cambridge,  about  1864,  and  is  both  learned 
and  accomplished  —  speaking  English  with  ab- 
solute perfection,  and  Italian  and  French  very 
finely,  besides  many  other  languages.  Handsome 
and  elegant  too,  like  all  the  Hindus  I  have  seen. 
And  there  is  an  Englishman  on  his  way  home  from 
India  —  a  fine-looking  man  of  Charles  Eliot's 
style,  and  with  such  a  musical  voice  that  I  sit 
after  meals  as  long  as  he  sits,  in  order  to  hear  him 
talk.  Also  a  big,  rough-looking  English  captain,  as 
gentle  as  a  kitten. 

"Monday,  March 30.  My  birthday.  Went,  along 
o'  my  chum,  Adkins,  to  Pompeii  and  spent  the 
day  there.  And  now,  what's  the  use  of  saying 
anything  about  it  except  to  tell  you  to  read  what 
Howells  says  about  it,1  and  to  say  that  it  was  the 
very  greatest  day  I  have  had  since  I  left  home; 
and,  like  Howells,  I  swear  to  go  again,  and  very 
likely  shall  not?  There's  no  use  trying  to  grow  elo- 
quent about  it,  for  it  is  altogether  beyond  words. 
There  is  nothing  else  so  wonderful  or  so  solemn  'on 
the  earth  or  under  it/  I  bought  a  little  book  of 
'pickerwows'  of  it,  and  will  explain  'em  when  I 
get  home.  My  chum  also,  thought  it  was  the 
greatest  day  of  his  life,  and  after  dinner  we  smoked 
our  pipes  on  the  stone  parapet  by  the  sea  here, 
listening  to  the  sound  of  the  waves  and  talking  it 
all  over. 

"  Tuesday,  March  j i.  My  chum  left  for  Rome, 

1  Italian  Journeys,  by  W.  D.  Howells. 


John  Fiske 

being  tied  by  a  circular  ticket  good  for  so  many 
days.  Poor  chap!  he  is  in  Venice  by  this  time.  He 
said  I  was  the  best  fellow  he  had  ever  seen,  and  he 
was  very  mournful  at  parting.  Left  alone,  I  hired 
a  carriage  (one-hoss  barouche)  for  all  day  at  12 
francs,  and  drove  through  the  grotto  of  Posilipo  to 
Puzzuoli,  where  I  first  saw  the  Temple  of  Serapis 
—  which  is  a  Greek  temple  with  three  great  col- 
umns left  standing.  They  have  all  been  lowered 
into  the  sea  by  the  sinking  of  the  land,  and  ele- 
vated again,  and  you  can  see  where  the  little  beasts 
have  chewed  'em!  While  I  was  examining  this 
place,  in  came  an  elderly  man  with  his  wife  and  two 
sons  about  twenty  years  old,  with  very  much  the 
air  of  fine  Harvard  boys.  The  old  gentleman  got 
very  sociable  with  me;  and  finally  when  I  put  up 
my  umbrella  to  keep  off  the  sun,  I  observed  that 
I  never  had  had  to  do  such  a  thing  before  in 
Europe;  whereat  he  was  very  much  surprised  at 
my  being  an  American,  and  said  he  should  have 
taken  me  for  a  typical  John  Bull.  Which  they  are 
New  York  people,  cultivated  and  pleasant,  but  I 
don't  know  their  names  nor  they  mine.  It  was 
agreed  that  our  carriages  should  keep  together, 
and  so  we  kept  on  to  the  ruins  of  Cumae  —  (Kymai) 
the  oldest  Greek  city  in  Italy.  Nothing  left  now 
but  a  bit  of  the  citadel  and  the  Acropolis,  and  a 
few  scattered  stones.  From  here  the  direct  road  to 
Lake  Avernus  lies  through  a  tunnel,  half  a  mile 
long,  cut  by  Agrippa  a  few  years  B.C.  We  drove 
through,  lighted  by  torches  for  which  the  lying, 
thieving  rascal  of  a  torch  bearer,  demanded  three 
francs,  and  was  glad  to  get  one,  when  he  found 
it  was  all  he  could  get.  Lake  Avernus  is  very 


Naples  and  Vicinity 

lovely,  and  with  the  vineyards  and  fields  of  wheat, 
and  green  peas  growing  on  the  slopes  all  around 
it,  lighted  up  by  intensest  sunshine,  it  suggests 
Eden,  much  more  than  Hades. 

"  Near  by  is  a  hill,  some  150  feet  high,  which  was 
thrown  up  at  one  thrust  by  an  earthquake  in  1538. 
We  didn't  go  into  the  Sibyls'  Cave  here,  because  it 
is  bogus  —  the  genuine  cave  is  over  at  Cumse.  Passed 
Lake  Lucrinus,  and  came  to  the  sulphur-baths  of 
Nero,  where  you  go  into  a  hole  in  the  side  of  the 
mountain  and  boil  in  a  brimstone  atmosphere. 
Guides  pestered  us  at  the  entrance;  but  having  little 
tapers  with  us,  the  two  young  men  and  I  went  in, 
though  I  did  n't  go  far  for  fear  of  catching  cold  on 
issuing  forth.  I  will  give  a  specimen  of  the  Italian 
character.  A  guide  pestered  me  till  I  told  him  (in 
good  Italian)  that  I  did  n't  want  his  services,  and 
that  he  might  *  allez  au  Diable.'  He  followed  after 
me  when  I  went  in,  and  followed  me  out  to  the  car- 
riage, and  demanded  a  fee  for  having  showed  me  the 
place!  !  !  I  again  gave  him  the  same  directions 
with  emphasis,  and  told  the  coachman  to  drive  on. 
The  old  fraud  held  with  one  hand  on  to  the  car- 
riage and  followed  me  a  mile  demanding  the  money 
that  I  owed  him,  until  at  last  I  ordered  cabby  to  hit 
him  with  the  whip,  and  you  ought  to  have  heard 
the  fellow  as  he  moved  off.  The  party  in  the  other 
carriage  were  similarly  pestered. 

"Next  we  reached  the  Capo  d.  Miseno,  where 
a  beautiful  little  boy  conducted  us  into  an  old 
Roman  reservoir,  and  afterwards  up  to  a  place 
which  commands  the  Bay  of  Naples,  just  as  Mian- 
tonomah  Hill  commands  Newport.  All  the  way 
up,  I  was  beset  with  little  beggar  children,  some_pf 


John  Fiske 

them  as  beautiful  as  cherubs,  especially  an  angelic 
little  girl,  about  the  size  of  Maudietick,  who  ran 
along  after  me  busily  crocheting,  and  whom  I 
offered  two  pennies  for  a  kiss,  but  she  would  n't 
agree  to  it,  whereupon  I  gave  her  the  pennies 
gratis,  'perche  voi  siete  bellissima,'  as  I  told  her, 
to  the  great  glee  of  the  other  little  girls,  who  evi- 
dently admitted  her  beauty,  and  felt  a  common 
interest  in  the  compliment.  Our  American  old 
gentleman  said  he  would  give  a  great  deal  to  see  me 
photographed  with  all  those  little  brown  young- 
sters around  me.  This  was  our  farthest  point. 

"Returning,  we  stopped  opposite  the  Temple 
of  Hermes  at  Baiae,  for  lunch,  and  my  American 
friends  called  me  to  come  and  share  their  lunch, 
which  I  did  willingly.  I  sat  upon  the  box,  and  we 
did  eat  like  Wardle,  and  the  Pickwickians,  at  the 
review.  During  our  lunch  we  were  surrounded  by 
Italians  of  every  age  and  sex,  who  seemed  highly 
interested  in  our  proceedings,  and  kept  offering 
us  coral,  and  violets,  etc. ;  and  asking  for  pence,  and 
making  such  a  din  that  we  could  hardly  hear  our- 
selves talk.  The  American  lady  said  it  took  her 
appetite  away,  and  I  could  hardly  blame  her;  but 
to  get  'shut  of  'em1  (as  Bridget  would  say)  was 
impossible!  The  best  fun  was  after  we  had  fin- 
ished. Scraps  of  bread  and  meat  were  handed  to 
all,  as  to  so  many  beseeching  dogs,  and  then  there 
was  great  clamour  for  the  empty  wine-bottle,  which 
at  last  we  gave  to  a  little  girl  with  a  big  baby  over 
her  shoulder,  which  she  bore  off  the  said  bottle  in 
the  exuberant  glee  of  triumph.  We  threw  away  the 
fragments  of  eggshells,  and  one  chap  began  to  pick 
them  carefully  up,  though  what  he  could  do  with 

512 


Naples  and  Vicinity 

'em  he  knows  better  than  I.  Poor  wretches!  they 
are  poor  because  they  are  too  lazy  to  work.  They 
will  lie  in  the  dirt  by  the  roadside  in  the  blazing 
sun,  and  sleep  rather  than  work.  What  can  be 
done  with  such  people;  they  have  neither  honesty, 
ambition,  nor  self-respect.  The  lowest  Irish  are 
far  above  the  level  of  these  creatures. 

"  After  lunch,  my  friends  drove  directly  back  to 
Naples,  but  I  went  to  the  amphitheatre  and  Puz- 
zuoli,  which  was  overwhelmed  by  an  eruption  of 
Solfatara,  and  has  been  partially  dug  out.  The 
inside  is  so  complete  that  you  have  even  the  trap- 
doors where  the  lions  came  up  through  the  floor; 
it  is  very  interesting.  Then  I  went  to  the  now- 
dried-up  Lake  of  Agnano  and  saw  the  Grotto  del 
Cane  or  place  where  there  is  enough  carbonic  acid 
to  kill  a  dog  in  two  minutes,  and  where  sulphurous 
acid  comes  smoking  out  of  holes  in  the  ground, 
which  yields  under  your  feet  if  you  stamp  on  it. 
Last  of  all  I  visited  the  Tomb  of  Virgil.  What  do 
you  think  of  that  for  'A  Day's  Pleasure'? 

"  Wednesday,  April  i.  Yesterday  I  took  steamer 
for  Capri,  touching  at  Sorrento.  Went  into  the 
Blue  Grotto  of  which  I  will  only  say  that  you  go  in 
by  boats  through  an  opening  about  two  feet  high 
in  the  side  of  the  hill;  and  within,  the  water  is  a 
most  gorgeous  blue,  and  the  whole  cave  shimmers 
with  lovely  blue,  and  it  is  a  wonderful  sight.  I  was 
more  successful  with  it  than  Howells,  who  went  in 
on  a  bad  day.1  We  lunched  at  the  Hotel  du  Louvre, 
on  a  balcony  overlooking  the  bay  —  one  of  the 
most  glorious  landscapes  in  the  world.  Capri  also 
has  its  share  of  beggars." 

1  See  the  charming  description  of  Capri  and  the  Capriotes  in 
Italian  Journeys,  by  W.  D.  Howells. 

513 


John  Fiske 

The  next  day  was  spent  in  Naples,  and  was  given 
to  writing  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Fiske  from  which  I 
have  quoted,  to  work  on  his  proofs  and  on  his  index, 
and  to  strolling  about  the  town  and  the  museum. 
Here  are  a  few  additional  extracts  from  the  letter: — 

"  Naples  smells  fearfully,  and  so  does  Rome. 
Mother  expected  me  to  go  crazy  over  Rome,  but 
save  for  the  antiquities,  I  think  it  is  a  disgusting 
place.  I  have  seen  quite  enough  of  this  country  to 
know  how  lovely  it  is.  Tell  Mrs.  McKenzie  that  I 
think  of  her  here  in  Naples  and  fully  agree  with 
her  as  to  the  surpassing  beauty  of  this  country. 
The  glory  and  beauty  of  this  week  at  Naples  I  shall 
never  forget.  I  don't  say  that  it  is  better  than  Eng- 
land, or  better  than  Petersham;  but  of  its  kind,  it  is 
certainly  quite  a  garden  of  Eden.  Naples,  too,  as 
a  city,  is  more  picturesque  than  Rome,  barring 
only  the  Forum  and  the  Capitol.  -  .. 

"My  conversation  now-a-days  is  a  grand  pot- 
pourri of  English,  French,  German  and  Italian, 
so  that  I  don't  know  what  I  am  talking.  I  could 
talk  Italian  pretty  well  with  another  month  here. 
•  "Love  to  all  the  babies.  I  saw  three  little  tots, 
aged  9,  7,  and  5,  paddling  their  own  canoe  on  the 
Bay  yesterday,  and  threw  'em  a  sou  apiece,  which 
they  cotched  'em." 

Fiske  had  planned  a  visit  to  Sorrento  and  also 
another  visit  to  Pompeii,  but  his  home  writing  so 
intensified  his  home  longing,  his  desire  to  set  his 
face  homeward,  that  both  visits  were  cut  out,  and 
after  a  brief  visit  to  Herculaneum  he  returned  the 
next  day,  April  3,  to  Rome. 

5H 


Returns  to  Rome 

His  next  letter  is  from  Venice,  wherein,  under 
date  of  April  14,  he  resumes  the  story  of  his  jour- 
ney in  a  very  jubilant  state  ofjnind:  — 

"O,  my  dear!  Glory  hallelujah!  !  !  PREFACE 
WRITTEN!  !  !  !  Only  150  pages  more  to  be  in- 
dexed! !  !  Coming  home  right  away!  !  !  !  !  !  What 
do  you  think  of  that? 

"  Did  n't  go  again  to  Pompeii,  nor  to  divine  Sor- 
rento, either.  (Read  Howells's  'Italian  Journeys' 
for  Pompeii  and  Capri.  It  is  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing books  that  ever  was  written  —  a  real  work  of 
genius,  as  you'll  see  if  you  ever  see  Italy,  the  fairy 
land.)  Got  eager  to  get  homeward  bound!  Went 
to  Herculaneum  next  morning,  and  felt  richly  re- 
paid, though  I  can  see  why  Howells  was  disap- 
pointed. Went  in  the  P.M.  to  Rome.  Saw  a  lot 
more  things  at  Rome,  and  did  the  Capitoline 
Museum  and  Vatican.  But  the  Sistine  Chapel  was 
shut  all  the  time,  and  I  could  n't  get  in.  The  Pope 
is  full  of  obstinacy  in  these  days,  because  he  has 
to  play  second  fiddle  to  Victor  Emanuel.  Went  to 
St.  Peter's  Sunday,-  but  the  Mass  was  n't  worth 
two  cents.  I  don't  see  either  the  grandeur  or  the 
beauty  of  St.  Peter's,  and  I  would  back  York 
Minster  against  all  the  churches  I've  seen  in 
Italy  put  together!" 

After  a  stop  of  two  days  in  Rome  he  went  again 
to  Florence,  where  he  remained  three  days  visiting 
his  friends  the  Grahams  and  Meads.  Of  what 
he  saw  in  these  three  days  he  makes  no  mention 
beyond  a  casual  remark  that  he  again  visited  the 
Uffizi  Gallery.  It  is  noticeable  that,  although  on 

515 


John  Fiske 

both  his  visits  to  Florence  he  went  to  this  famous 
gallery,  he  does  not  mention  impressions  made  upon 
his  mind  by  the  great  collection  of  masterpieces  of 
ancient  sculpture  and  modern  painting  gathered 
there,  while  he  had  much  to  say  about  them  when 
he  reached  home.  He  does  not  appear  to  have 
noted  in  Florence  anything  suggestive  of  Michael 
Angelo  or  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  or  Savonarola:  yet 
with  the  varied  contributions  of  these  great  work- 
ers to  the  world's  thought,  he  was  most  familiar. 

On  his  way  from  Florence  to  Venice,  he  stopped 
one  day  at  Bologna.  From  Venice  he  wrote  his 
mother,  giving  her  some  general  impressions  of 
his  Continental  trip  thus  far:  — 

"I  believe  this  is  the  first  time  I  have  written 
to  you,  since  I  left  London,  and  I  have  been  very 
wicked,  I  know,  but  it  is  very  hard  to  write  letters 
when  one  is  travelling  fast,  and  I  have  hardly  done 
justice,  even  to  Abby.  I  have  usually  told  her  to 
send  you  my  letters  to  her,  and  so  have  written 
less  often  than  I  should  otherwise  have  done.  I  am 
beginning  to  get  tired  of  Europe,  and  anxious  to 
get  home.  It  is  eight  months  now  since  I  left  home, 
and  it  is  a  pretty  long  pull.  And  besides,  I  have 
found  travelling  on  the  Continent  rather  tame 
after  my  glorious  days  in  London.  I  have  n't  found 
any  trouble  in  talking  French,  and  Italian,  enough 
to  get  along  comfortably;  but  it  seems  very  lone- 
some and  dreary  to  be  where  you  don't  hear  Eng- 
lish spoken.  I  don't  see  how  the  people  can  prefer 
the  Continent  to  England.  I  am  glad  to  have  seen 


Some  General  Impressions 

France  and  Italy  once,  but  I  would  n't  give  a  six- 
pence to  visit  either  country  again  —  not  even  to 
revisit  Paris.  They  don't  fascinate  or  draw  me, 
though  I  enjoy  everything  I  see  very  much  —  and 
especially  enjoyed  my  32d  birthday,  at  Pompeii, 
more  than  any  other  one  day  in  Europe.  Rome,  I 
enjoyed  very  much  —  more  than  I  can  tell  until  I 
have  had  more  time  to  think  about  it;  but  what 
I  enjoyed  was  ancient  Rome,  and  the  sculptures  in 
the  Vatican.  In  modern  Rome  I  can  see  nothing 
attractive  at  all.  St.  Peter's  is  neither  impressive 
nor  beautiful  to  me  —  I  think  it  hideous;  and  of 
the  dozen  or  twenty  famous  churches  I  saw,  none 
impressed  me  at  all  except  St.  Pauls- Without-the- 
Walls.  I  do  like  St.  Mark's,  though,  here  in  Venice; 
and  I  don't  know  when  I  have  more  thoroughly  en- 
joyed paintings  than  the  Titians,  Tin  tore  ttos,  and 
Veroneses  here  in  the  Ducal  Palace  and  the  Acad- 
emy —  especially,  on  the  whole,  the  Tintorettos. 
I  have  been  here  about  a  week,  and  rather  hate  to 
go  away.  I  like  Venice,  on  the  whole,  better  than 
any  other  city  on  the  Continent,  so  far,  although 
I  am  very  fond  of  Florence.  It  is  delicious  to  go 
gliding  about  in  a  gondola  in  these  quaint  old 
canals;  and  I  am  not  sure  that  I  don't  like  the 
little  canals  with  their  labyrinthine  twists  and  con- 
tinual surprises,  even  better  than  the  big  one.  I 
have  got  a  most  comfortable  room,  in  a  very  queer 
German  hotel  just  off  the  Grand  Canal,  about  two 
minutes'  walk  from  the  Piazza.  Did  you  ever  see  a 
richer  building  than  the  Ducal  Palace,  unless  pos- 
sibly the  palace  at  Versailles?  .  .  . 

"I  saw  considerable  of  Larkin  Mead;  of  course 
I  like  him  very  much  —  never  yet  saw  a  Mead  that 


John  Fiske 

I  did  n't  like.  The  same  brightness,  sweetness,  and 
simplicity  runs  through  the  whole  family. 

"I  go  from  here  to  Verona,  and  then  to  Milan 
and  Como.  Hope  to  be  able  to  get  over  either  the 
Spliigen  or  the  St.  Gothard  into  Switzerland.  If 
not,  I  shall  go  around  by  Geneva,  through  Turin. 
In  choosing  routes,  I  find  that,  whichever  one  I 
choose  I  am  sure  to  enjoy  it,  but  somebody  else 
always  assures  me  I  ought  to  have  chosen  some 
other.  I  shall  go  down  the  Rhine  from  Switzerland 
to  Belgium,  and  leave  out  central  Germany  alto- 
gether. I  have  seen  quite  enough  for  this  time,  and 
I  want  to  get  home!  I  am  much  more  homesick 
than  I  was  in  London,  for  I  am  homesick  for  home, 
and  for  London  too." 

This  letter  he  signs  —  "From  a  Homesick  Phil- 
osopher." 

Fiske  remained  in  Venice  but  seven  days,  and  a 
goodly  portion  of  his  time  was  given  to  putting  the 
finishing  touches  to  his  book.  The  photographs  he 
collected,  however,  show  that  he  managed  to  see 
the  points  of  greatest  interest,  although  but  few 
are  mentioned  in  his  letters. 

His  next  letter  is  from  Interlaken,  dated  April 
27,  wherein  he  resumes  the  story  of  his  journey:  — 

"Since  I  left  Venice,  every  day  has  been  better 
than  the  other.  Spent  half  a  day  at  Verona  and 
then  went  on  to  Milan.  Went  thrice  to  the  Milan 
Cathedral  and  ascended  the  spire.  The  interior  is 
in  some  respects  grander  than  any  other  that  I  have 
seen;  the  facade  is  ruined  by  classical  doors  and 


In  Switzerland 

windows;  otherwise  the  exterior  is  wonderfully 
light  and  beautiful,  but  not  so  grand  as  Lincoln 
or  York.  There  are  upwards  of  2000  statues  carved 
on  it,  —  which  will  serve  to  give  you  some  idea  of 
the  elaborateness  of  it.  Went  up  the  lake  of  Como, 
and  stopped  at  Cadenabbia  —  beautiful  place. 
Went  over  Lake  Lugano  and  stopped  at  Luvino 
on  Lake  Maggiore,  where  I  was  the  sole  occupant 
of  a  big  hotel  with  over  200  rooms.  Those  swin- 
dling Italians  at  Milan  told  me  that  the  Spliigen 
and  St.  Gothard  passes  were  not  open,  and  I  was 
fool  enough  to  believe  them,  although  nearly  every 
word  ever  yet  told  me,  by  an  Italian,  has  been  a 
lie!  When  I  got  to  the  lakes,  I  found  I  could  get 
over  easily,  but  I  had  left  my  portmanteau  at 
Milan,  and  so  had  to  go  back.  I  concluded  to  go 
by  Mont  Cenis,  and  stop  at  Chambery,  and 
carry  out  the  dream  of  my  boyhood  by  seeing 
Rousseau's  home  at  Les  Charmettes.  I  enclose  a 
picture,  and  think  you  will  see  why  I  like  it  — 'also, 
some  flowers  gathered  there.  I  also  saw  Voltaire's 
chateau  at  Ferney  — a  much  less  charming  place." 

To  Switzerland  Fiske  gave  but  seven  days,  and 
his  route  was  from  Mont  Cenis  to  Genoa,  thence, 
via  Freiburg,  Bern,  Interlaken,  and  Luzerne  to 
Bale  and  Strasburg. 

Two  things  are  noticeable  in  his  record  of  this 
portion  of  his  Continental  journey,  notwithstanding 
the  haste  with  which  it  was  made —  his  interest  in 
Les  Charmettes,  one  of  the  temporary  abodes  of 
Rousseau  during  his  vagrant  social  life,  and  his 
visit  to  Ferney,  so  memorable  as  the  home  of 

519 


John  Fiske 

Voltaire,  when  as  the  "  Squire  of  Ferney"  he  was 
the  most  important  personage  in  Europe. 

"The  visitor  to  Geneva,  whose  studies  had 
made  him  duly  acquainted  with  the  most  interest- 
ing human  personality  of  all  that  are  associated 
with  that  historic  city,  will  never  leave  the  place 
without  making  a  pilgrimage  to  the  chateau  of 
Ferney.  In  that  refined  and  quiet. rural  homestead, 
things  still  remain  very  much  as  on  the  day  when 
the  aged  Voltaire  left  it  for  the  last  visit  to  Paris, 
where  his  long  life  was  worthily  ended,  amid  words 
and  deeds  of  affectionate  homage.  One  may  sit 
down  at  the  table  where  was  written  the  most  per- 
fect prose,  perhaps,  that  ever  flowed  from  pen, 
and  look  about  the  little  room  with  its  evidences  of 
plain  living  and  high  thinking,  until  one  seems  to 
recall  the  eccentric  figure  of  the  vanished  master, 
with  his  flashes  of  shrewd  wisdom  and  caustic  wit, 
his  insatiable  thirstier  knowledge,  his  consum- 
ing hatred  of  bigotry  and  oppression,  his  merciless 
contempt  for  shams,  his  boundless  enthusiasm  of 
humanity.  As  we  stroll  in  the  park,  that  quaint 
presence  goes  along  with  us  till  all  at  once,  in  a 
shady  walk,  we  come  upon  something  highly  sig- 
nificant and  characteristic,  the  little  parish  church 
with  its  Latin  inscription:  — '  Deo  erexit  Voltaire ' ; 
i.e. , '  Voltaire  built  it  for  God ' ;  and  as  we  muse  upon 
it,  the  piercing  eyes,  and  sardonic  but  not  unkindly 
smile  seem  still  to  follow  us.  What  meant  this  ec- 
centric inscription?  "  * 

Fiske  regarded  Voltaire  as  much    the  greater 
and  much  the  more  fruitful  thinker.   His  estimate 
1  See  Fiske's  essay,  The  Everlasting  Reality  of  Religion. 
520 


Les  Charmettes  and  Ferney 

of  these  two  diverse  illuminators  of  eighteenth- 
century  thought  accorded  with  John  Morley's, 
whose  judgment  upon  them  Fiske  regarded  as  the 
fairest,  on  the  whole,  that  had  been  given.1 

Fiske's  special  interest  in  Les  Charmettes  arose 
from  the  fact  that  during  the  early  period  of  Rous- 
seau 's  social  vagabondage  it  was  his  abiding  place; 
and  when,  in  his  "Emile,"  became  to  set  forth  his 
ideas  of  "  Religion  according  to  Nature  "  in  the  guise 
of  a  profession  of  faith  on  the  part  of  a  Savoyard 
Vicar,  he  drew  upon  the  natural  scenery  about  Les 
Charmettes  for  his  inspiration,  portraying  the  im- 
pressiveness  of  nature  as  a  religious  influence,  with 
all  his  marvellous  powers  of  exposition.  The  effect 
upon  the  perturbed  religious  thought  of  Europe 
of  this  fervid  appeal  to  deistic  religious  sentiment- 
alism  is  familiar  to  every  student  of  the  literature 
and  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Fiske's 
desire  to  take  a  glance  at  the  nature  surroundings 
identified  with  the  production  of  this  remarkable 
deistic  polemic  is  readily  understood. 

Of  his  journey  through  Switzerland  to  Inter- 
laken  he  writes:  — 

11  Heard  the  organ  at  Freiburg  (one  of  the  finest 
in  Europe)  and  spent  half  a  day  at  Bern,  a  city  of 
great  interest  to  me,  historically.2  I  like  everything 

1  See  Morley's  Voltaire,  pp.  4-6;  Morley's  Rousseau,  pp.  5-7. 

2  Fiske  probably  refers  to  the  history  of  Bern  during  the  thir- 
teenth century,  when,  after  being  declared  a  free  imperial  city  by 
the  Emperor  Frederick  II,  it  established  a  democratic  constitutional 
government,  out  of  which  grew  a  legislative  body  of  two  hundred, 

521 


John  Fiske 

about  Switzerland.  The  people  are  neat  and  honest, 
the  food  is  good,  and  you  can  get  good  cigars  for 
two  cents  apiece!  It  is  a  great  relief  after  the  ever- 
lasting lying  and  thieving  of  Italy.  I  have  n't  seen 
any  beggars  either.  However,  it  would  n't  be  fair 
to  blackguard  the  poor  Italians  too  much.  Switzer- 
land has  the  advantage  of  having  been  a  free  coun- 
try for  600  years.'  In  Italy  you  constantly  meet 
troops  of  lazy  little  beggar  children,  often  beauti- 
ful, but  dirty  as  poison,  holding  out  their  hats  for 
coppers.  Here  it  is  a  relief  to  see  little  boys  and 
girls  on  their  way  to  school,  with  books  and  slates, 
just  as  in  New  England.  In  many  ways  it  seems 
more  homelike  here  than  anywhere  else  in  Europe. 
If  I  had  got  to  live  on  the  Continent,  I  believe  I 
should  choose  some  place  in  Switzerland." 

He  stopped  at  Interlaken  to  see  the  great  Grin- 
del  wald  glacier  and  also  to  take  in  Alpine  scenery 
roundabout  —  and  from  Interlaken  he  writes:  — 

"  I  did  n't  break  my  neck  on  the  glacier,  though 
I  seemed  to  come  rather  near  it.  The  eight-mile 
ride,  going  and  coming,  was  occasionally  pokerish 
in  aspect,  but  sound  in  principle,  as  the  hoss  was 
sure  footed  —  a  dear  honest  old  hoss.  The  worst 
part  was  the  glacier,  which,  I  did  n't  have  arctics 
on,  and  found  it  very  slippery,  and  though  I  did  n't 
go  on  the  edge  of  any  1000  foot  precipices,  I  went 
on  the  edge  of  some  50  foot  ones,  and  did  n't  like 
it  much.  But  it  was  a  grand  experience;  to  get 
away  up  between  two  big  Alps  was  quite  a  new  sen- 

which  formed  the  germ  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  oligarchies  of 
modern  European  history. 

522 


At  Interlaken 

sation:  And  then  the  Ice  Grotto!  which  is  fine! 
We  had  a  truly  superb  day,  only  at  noon  it  was 
hotter  than  Shadrach's  furnace.  After  doing  the 
glacier,  I  drove  to  Lauterbrunnen  and  lunched  on 
fresh  trout  just  under  the  Staubbach.  Returned 
to  Interlaken  and  walked  up  the  Heimweh-Fluh 
through  a  pine  grove  very  much  like  picnic  grove 
[Petersham].  So  I  am  awfully  tired  to-night  and 
call  this  my  very  greatest  day  in  Europe  so  far. 
At  the  Bear  hotel,  at  Grindelwald,  you  are  just  at 
the  foot  of  three  giant  mountains,  every  one  of 
'em  over  12,000  feet  high;  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  sensations  as  I  looked  out  of  my  bed-room 
window  at  5  this  morning. 

"I  don't  know  that  Switzerland  is  more  sublime 
than  Scotland,  for  nothing  can  excel  in  sublimity 
Loch  Linnhe,  and  Glencoe,  and  the  awful  moors  by 
the  King's  House  Inn.  I  don't  know  that  it  is  more 
beautiful  than  Italy,  meaning  by  beautiful '  what  the 
eye  admires.'  And  I  don't  know  that  it  is  any  more 
lovely  than  Petersham  —  meaning  by  lovely  what 
the  heart  clings  to.  But  for  sublimity,  and  beauty, 
and  loveliness  combined,  I  say  that  Switzerland  is  so 
far  above  all  other  countries,  that  there  is  no  use  in 
saying  any  more  about  it.  To  compare  any  other 
country  with  it  is  absurd.  You  must  see  it  some 
time.  We  '11  contrive  to  get  a  summer  vacation  over 
here  and  give  two  or  three  weeks  to  Switzerland." 

It  was  with  profound  regret  that  Fiske  here  de- 
finitely gave  up  the  German  portion  of  his  trip,  espe- 
cially his  long-contemplated  visit  to  Weimar;  for,  if 
there  was  one  particular  place  on  earth  he  longed 
to  see,  it  was  the  one  that  for  fifty  years  formed  the 

523 


John  Fiske 

social  environment  of  the  many-sided  Goethe.   He 
resumes  the  story  of  his  journey  at  Cologne:  — 

"  Been  travelling  like  smoke  —  went  from  Inter- 
laken  to  Lucerne  over  Lake  Brienz,  and  'one  hoss 
shay'  over  the  Briinig  Pass.  Splendid  ride.  Next 
A.M.  got  up  at  4.30  and  went  the  whole  length 
of  Lake  Lucerne  to  Fliielen,  omnibus  to  Altdorf ; 
breakfasted  there,  and  saw  Tell's  statue.  Grand 
statue,  exquisite  little  town,  magnificent  lake,  one 
of  the  grandest  lakes  I  have  seen.  Returned  by 
shanks  mare  to  Fliielen,  steamer  to  Vitznau,  and 
halfway  up  the  Rigi  by  railway.  In  summer,  you 
pays  12  cents,  and  goes  to  the  end  of  the  road.  Now, 
you  only  pay  6  cents  and  go  halfway,  and  have  to 
walk  the  balance.  Made  me  puff;  but  it  paid  for 
the  trouble.  Sublime  view,  and  far  grander  now 
than  in  summer,  because  there  is  more  snow.  Forty- 
six  mountains,  over  10,000  feet  high,  and  nine  over 
12,000  feet.  What  do  you  think  of  that  for  a 
'pickerwow'?  Also  nine  lakes,  and  a  batch  of 
country  measuring  300  miles  in  circuit.  It  was  a 
superb  day,  and  I  never  saw  so  magnificent  a 
sight  before.  The  point  where  I  stood  was  about 
6000  feet  high.  Home  again  (to  Lucerne)  by 
steamer,  loafed  about  town  an  hour  by  moonlight, 
and  went  to  bed  tired  enough! 

"Up  at  5  next  A.M.  and  went  to  Strasburg  and 
had  three  hours  there  to  see  the  Cathedral.  The 
fagade  is  very  fine,  but  otherwise  it  was  disappoint- 
ing —  far  inferior  to  the  English  cathedrals.  Saw 
also  the  remarkable  clock  there.  Every  woman  in 
Strasburg  carries  a  baby  in  her  arms.  Never  saw 
so  many  babies  before  in  all  my  life;  had  to  pick 

524 


At  Strasburg 

my  way  carefully  to  keep  from  stepping  onto  some 
baby  or  other,  and  crushing  it!  Went  on  to  Heidel- 
berg, and  was  too  eager  for  tezzletelts  to  take  bene- 
fit of  sleep  next  morning,  and  so  got  up  early  and 
found  a  huge  pile  of  letters  at  banker's  from  you, 
the  bairns,  mother,  George,  Paine  (a  lovely  lovely 
letter),  and  Mrs.  Adml  Fanshawe.  Also  several 
4 Notices'  from  Dennett.  Did  the  castle  and  uni- 
versity —  especially  library.  Next  day  left  at 
8  A.M.  for  Worms.  Saw  the  Cathedral  (a  second- 
rate  affair),  and  the  new  Luther  monument,  which 
is  sublime  beyond  description;  one  of  the  grandest 
things  I  have  seen  in  Europe.  Went  on  to  Mayence 
and  saw  the  Cathedral  —  a  rather  fair  one ;  also 
some  Roman  remains.  Went  on  by  steamer  down 
the  Rhine  to  Bingen  just  opposite  the  town  where 
the  rats  ate  up  Bishop  Hatto. 

"Read  my  Myth-book.  Went  to  bed  beastly 
tired.  Got  up  at  4  this  A.M.  bright  as  a  lark,  and 
had  a  superb  sail  down  the  Rhine  to-day  reaching 
Cologne,  at  2.30  P.M. 

'The  Rhine  is  not  equal  to  the  Hudson,  and  I 
think  not  equal  to  the  Connecticut;  but  it  is  very 
lovely  and  romantic,  and  there's  an  old  castle 
with  forty-eleven  legends  to  it,  about  once  a  mile. 
I  shall  bring  'pickerwows.'" 

Here  are  his  impressions  of  the  cathedral  at 
Cologne:  — 

"The  Cathedral  here  at  Cologne  is  unquestion- 
ably the  grandest  that  I  have  seen  externally; 
internally  it  is  also  absolutely  perfect;  but  in  im- 
pressiveness  not  quite  equal  to  Milan.  The  French 
partly  destroyed  it  in  1795  —  but  they  (not  the 

525 


John  Fiske 

French)  are  restoring  it  fast.  Six  hundred  workmen 
are  at  it  daily  —  $2,000,000  have  already  been  spent 
upon  it,  and  by  1880,  probably,  the  grand  towers, 
over  500  feet  high,  will  be  finished.  As  for  stained 
glass,  that  is  a  lost  art,  and  happy  are  the  old  Cathe- 
drals like  York,  Lincoln,  Carlisle  (and  Cologne)  that 
still  keep  their  matchless  old  windows  —  the  most 
glorious  things  of  beauty  that  the  mind  of  man  ever 
conceived.  Ever  since  I  saw  the  great  east  window 
at  Carlisle,  I  have  had  stained  glass  on  the  brain." 

At  Cologne  Fiske  indulged  in  visions  of  a  few 
happy  days  in  London  before  sailing  for  home. 

"  A  week  from  this  eve  I  shall  probably  spend  at 
the  'orrid  'Uxleys',  and  it  will  be  worth  all  the  past 
ten  weeks  put  together.  I  have  had  a  magnificent 
journey;  but  grudge  every  minute  lost  from  h'old 
h'England,  and  am  satiated  with  sight-seeing,  and 
am  homesick!" 

He  was  three  days  in  making  the  trip  from 
Cologne  to  London,  the  main  incidents  of  which  he 
gives  in  a  letter  from  London  of  May  9,  1874:  —  : 

"O  my  dear!  Hezzy's  back  in  London!  and  in 
Bloomsbury,  too,  just  around  the  corner  from  where 
I  lived  before. 

"Left  Cologne  early  Monday  morning  and 
stopped  at  Aachen  (what  the  French  call  Aix-la- 
Chapelle),  which,  as  you  may  not  know,  was  the 
titular  capital  of  the  Empire1  from  800  to  1793. 
Saw  the  cathedral  and  Charlemagne's  tomb  therein. 
Did  n't  see  the  Amsterdam  Dutch,  or  the  Rotter- 

1  The  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
526 


Down  the  Rhine  to  Belgium 

dam  Dutch,  but  rode  through  a  part  of  Holland 
(and  saw  a  little  of  various  kinds  of  Dutch). 
Stopped  at  Antwerp,  saw  the  cathedral,  and  in  it 
the  truly  stupendous  and  amazing  picture  by 
Rubens  —  the  '  Descent  from  the  Cross '  —  also 
several  other  magnificent  pictures  by  Rubens. 
Rubens  seems  to  me  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  who 
have  held  the  brush,  and  I  wish  I  had  more  time 
to  study  him.  His  'Last  Supper'  in  the  gallery  at 
Milan  is  immense  in  conception.  By  Jove,  I  am 
beginning  faintly  to  realize  what  an  amount  I  have 
seen  and  learned  these  three  months. 

"Went  on  to  Bruges,  and  put  up  at  a  little  one- 
horse  Flemish  tavern  opposite  the  Belfry.  All  this 
was  one  day's  work.  It  was  9  P.M.  when  I  reached 
Bruges,  and  there  was  a  grand  May  festival  in  the 
great  square,  which  was  brightly  illuminated,  and 
covered  with  little  tents  and  booths.  I  was  awfully 
tired,  but  this  waked  me  up,  and  I  staid  out  till 
12  o'clock.  O,  how  I  wished  I  had  the  little  ones 
there!  If  some  little  'deils'  I  know,  had  been  there, 
their  wings  would  have  flapped,  I  know.  It  was  one 
of  the  richest  and  jolliest  sights  I  have  seen  in  Eu- 
rope —  Dwarfs  and  Giants,  operatic  performances, 
'pickerwows,'  hobby-horse-riding,  games,  trials 
of  strength,  etc.  I  went  in  for  everything!  laughing 
and  talking  with  the  people;  tried  my  hand  at  a 
dead  lift,  both  hands  in  front  and  lifted  60  kilo- 
grammes —  not  quite  my  own  weight  (87  kilo- 
grammes), but  better  than  I  thought  I  could  do  on 
a  dead  lift.  Also  mesmerism,  clairvoyance,  legerde- 
main, music  —  a  regular  carnival. 

"  Got  up  next  morning  at  7  and  went  about  town 
a  little,  which  many  of  the  streets  are  canals,  just 

527 


John  Fiske 

as  in  Venice,  but  with  common  boats  instead  of  gon- 
dolas. Went  on  to  Ostend,  and  embarked  at  10  A.M. 
Told  the  steward  to  wake  me  up  in  time  to  see  the 
white  cliffs  of  h'old  h'England  and  then  went  to 
sleep  and  slept  for  four  hours.  When  I  got  up  we 
were  approaching  Dover,  and  could  see  the  shore  of 
France  opposite  just  on  the  horizon.  Gorgeous  day. 
I  was  absolutely  frantic  with  delight  at  setting  foot 
on  English  ground  again! 

"Went  to  a  beer-shop  and  drank  the  'elth  of 
h'old  h'England  in  a  bright  pewter  mug;  and  went 
on  to  Canterbury,  and  put  up  at  the  Rose  Tavern, 
in  Rose  Lane  —  lovely  little  cosy  inn,  with  white 
dimity  curtains,  and  jolly  little  back-parlour,  with 
one  lump  of  cannel  flickering  in  a  wee  grate.  Sat 
down  to  a  good  plain  supper  of  cold  roast  beef,  and 
home-made  bread,  pickles  and  beer;  and  O  how 
good  things  tasted ! 

"  Spent  all  day  Wednesday,  till  4.30  P.M.  in 
Canterbury  —  one  of  the  loveliest  towns  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  Saw  the  inn  where  Chaucer's  tales 
were  told  —  an  inn  no  longer,  or  I  would  have 
stopped  there.  The  cathedral  is  very  grand  and 
beautiful,  and  the  King's  school  so  bewitching  that 
I  should  like  to  have  one  just  like  it  for  Barl,  and 
Lacry.  I  also  saw  St.  Martin's  Church  where 
Christianity  was  first  preached  in  heathen  England, 
where  Ethelbert  was  baptized,  and  where  he  and 
his  queen  Bertha  lie  buried. 

"And,  my  dear,  I  always  thought  England  lovely, 
but  what  shall  I  say  of  these  country  lanes  in  May? 
The  beautiful  green  grass,  the  wild  flowers,  the 
budding  hedge-rows,  the  air  heavy  with  the  scent  of 
blossoms,  the  tinkling  cow-bells,  the  superb  great 

528 


Back  in  London 

Southdown  sheep,  the  clean  little  cottages,  with 
their  windows  all  scarlet  with  geraniums,  and  the 
ivy  drooping  about  their  eaves.  Other  countries 
may  be  grander,  but  for  pure  delicious  loveliness, 
give  me  an  English  country  lane.  No  wonder  the 
English  poets  love  to  sing  of  the  beauties  of  spring 
—  and  no  wonder  they  love  nature  so  much  that 
Taine  does  n't  quite  understand  'em.  But  la  belle 
France  is  a  poor  country  in  comparison. 

"Got  up  to  London  Wednesday  evening,  and 
next  day  found  this  room  up  here  near  the  Museum, 
where  I  feel  at  home.  SawTrubner  and  Macmillan, 
and  they  were  awfully  glad  to  see  me.  Thursday 
evening  called  at  the  'orrid  'Uxleys'.  Huxley  was 
out,  but  Mrs.  Huxley  and  the  children  were  all 
around  the  dining-room  table,  reading,  and  draw- 
ing, and  cutting  things  out  of  paper.  A  general 
shout  went  up  when  '  Hezzy '  was  announced,  and 
for  about  two  minutes  there  was  a  deal  of  affec- 
tionate greeting  and  hand  shaking.  Took  a  cup  of 
tea  and  spent  the  evening,  and  the  young  people 
could  hardly  be  coaxed  or  driven  off  to  bed  when  the 
time  came,  they  were  so  much  entertained  by  my 
adventures. 

".  .  .  After  getting  my  ticket,  I  called  at  Spencer's 
and  found  him  out,  and  left  a  note  for  him.  Went 
to  Conway's  and  was  warmly  greeted.  Went  down 
to  the  Royal  Institution  to  see  Tyndall,  and  found 
him  out,  but  saw  Spottiswoode,  who  told  me  there 
would  be  a  roaring  dinner  of  the  Royal  Society  the 
2  ist,  after  which  Tyndall  will  illustrate  some  new 
discoveries  of  his  own  on  sound.  That  will  be  grand, 
and  I  am  to  receive  a  formal  invitation.  Was  in- 
vited to  a  grand  blow-out  at  Hyde  Park  Gardens, 

529 


John  Fiske 

last  evening,  and  had  to  get  my  trunk  and  unpack 
my  dress-suit  the  first  thing.  Dined  alone  at  the 
Criterion  Grill-Room  on  Piccadilly,  where  they 
broil  a  delicious  rump  steak  right^before  your  eyes, 
and  serve  it  piping  hot,  tender  and  juicy,  with 
mealy  boiled  potatoes,  a  pint  pot  of  unequalled  beer, 
and  a  bit  of  cream  cheese  afterward  —  a  truly 
royal  dinner  —  for  half-a-crown :  never  made  a 
dinner  like  that  on  the  Continent.  I  have  learned 
that  a  plain  steak,  cooked  that  way,  is  far  ahead  of 
all  the  filets  aux  champignons  you  can  get  in  France. 

4 'After  this  magnificent  repast,  I  went  to  the 
Royal  Institution,  and  heard  a  lecture  by  Sedley 
Taylor,  and  saw  Tyndall.  Then  went  to  the  party 
at  Hyde  Park  Gardens,  along  with  Conway,  and 
saw  A.  J.  Ellis,  the  philologist,  Mrs.  Linton,  who 
wrote  the  '  Girl  of  the  Period '  articles  in  the  '  Satur- 
day Review,'  and  many  others.  Got  to  bed  at  i 
o'clock,  which  is  as  early  as  one  can  do  here  in 
London. 

"It  bids  fair  to  be  a  busy  time  the  next  fortnight. 
To-morrow,  I  spend  the  day  at  Macmillans,  with 
hopes  of  much  music.  Monday,  I  go  to  the  new 
Museum  of  Archaeology,  and  dine  at  the  Royal  In- 
stitution with  Tyndall.  Wednesday,  there's  a  din- 
ner for  me  at  Conway 's.  There's  to  be  a  grand 
dinner  for  me  also  at  Trubner's  —  day  not  yet  fixed. 
The  'orrid  'Uxley  is  to  let  me  know  when  he'll  have 
me.  No  doubt  I  shall  dine  at  least  once  at  Spencer's. 
Next  Saturday,  I  am  to  go  to  Debrow  to  see  the 
Fanshawes,  and  Monday  we  are  to  go  to  St.  Albans 
together.  I  shall  probably  return  to  London  the  fol- 
lowing day.  Besides  this,  Conway  and  I  are  plan- 
ning a  trip  to  Salisbury  together.  We  propose  to 

530 


Back  in  London 

leave  next  week  Thursday  for  Winchester,  and  see 
the  Cathedral  and  antiquities,  go  on  to  Salisbury 
and  sleep  at  the  Red  Lion,  famous  all  over  England 
for  beer  and  stewed  eels;  and  go  to  Stonehenge 
next  day,  see  the  Cathedral,  and  return  to  London — 
total,  two  days.  I  grudge  the  time  from  London,  but 
fear  I  shall  never  forgive  myself  if  I  don't  see  Salis- 
bury Cathedral,  the  spire  of  which  is  thought  by 
many  to  be  the  finest  in  the  whole  world.  And  be- 
sides all  this,  I  must  go  to  Windsor  Castle,  Rich- 
mond, and  Stoke  Poges;  and  also  hear  a  debate  in 
Parliament,  if  possible.  Then  there  is  the  great  ex- 
hibition of  pictures  now,  and  lots  more  things.  You 
see  I  shall  be  gadding  every  minute  from  dawn  till 
dewy  eve,  and  may  be  I  shall  not  write  again  except 
just  a  line  before  sailing — one  steamer  before.  You 
know  I  am  safe  and  among  friends,  and  dreadfully 
stingy  of  time.  Here  I  am  writing  to  you,  when  I 
ought  to  be  putting  the  finishing  strokes  to  my 
Index  so  as  to  give  it  to  Clay  Monday,  and  get  rid 
of  the  proofs  of  it  next  week  —  that  job  will  fill 
up  to-day.  f  •  **M 

"Now  that  I  am  back  in  London  I  love  it  more 
than  ever,  and  I  believe  it  would  n't  take  much  to 
make  me  willing  to  migrate  here  with  all  my  traps, 
and  stay  here  ad  infinitum.  You  would  like  it  too ! 
It  is  a  place  that  grows  upon  one  more  and  more; 
and  you  can  no  more  exhaust  it  than  you  could 
compass  infinity.  Other  cities  are  great:  this  is 
without  beginning,  or  end;  no  human  mind  can 
take  it  all  in,  and  that  is  one  reason  why  the  sen- 
sation of  being  here  never  loses  its  strange  charm. 

"But,  after  all,  I  stick  to  Petersham!  Good-bye 
for  four  weeks,  two  of  which  will  be  nearly  gone  when 

531 


John  Fiske 

you  get  this.  It  will  seem  mighty  good  to  get  to  work 
in  the  Library  again.  I  feel  equal  to  almost  hany- 
thirik.  With  'eaps  of  love  h'all  around. 

"  'EZZY." 

Not  all  of  Fiske's  programme  for  the  close  of  his 
visit  to  England  could  be  carried  out.  His  much- 
desired  excursion  with  his  friend  Conway  to  Win- 
chester and  Salisbury  had  to  be  omitted,  for  the 
social  courtesies  extended  to  him  were  of  such  a 
cordial  nature  that  he  could  not  well  refuse  them, 
and  they  took  up  all  his  spare  time.  He  saw  his 
book,  the  production  of  which  was  the  main  object 
of  his  visit,  completely  finished,  and  he  sent  some 
last  messages  to  Mrs.  Fiske  and  to  his  mother,  from 
which  the  following  extracts  are  taken. 

To  his  mother  he  writes,  May  21 :  — 

"  I  have  had  a  great  time  since  I  returned  to  Lon- 
don. Spent  two  days  at  Debrow.  Had  a  farewell 
Sunday  at  Macmillan's.  Had  a  stupendous  din- 
ner party  at  Sherman's,  Norbiton  Hall,  Surrey,  at 
which  among  others,  Gen.  Pleasonton  was  present, 
and  he  and  I  staid  all  night  there.  Tuesday  there 
was  a  grand  dinner  at  Triibner's,  and  Wednes- 
day at  Conway's,  and  to-night  I  dined  at  Spen- 
cer's, with  Masson,  Bain,  Lewes,  and  Clifford.  It 
was  a  glorious  evening,  and  Lewes  was  in  his  most 
bewitching  humour.  He  kept  us  in  a  roar  all  the 
evening  and  Spencer  and  I  fairly  laughed  till  we 
cried,  and  my  sides  are  still  sore.  He  is  an  exceed- 
ingly droll  man.  Masson  and  Bain  are  not  devoid  of 
wit  either,  and  their  brrrroad  Scotch  accent  helps  it. 

532 


Farewell  Visits 

"I  also  had  a  grand  dinner  with  Tyndall  at  the 
Royal  Institution,  in  the  room  which  used  to  be 
Davy's  and  Faraday's." 

To  Mrs.  Fiske  he  writes,  May  23:  — 

"  I  am  just  going  down  to  Macmillan's  to  get  a 
complete  bound  copy  of  my  book  to  bring  home  — 
I  pack  up  to-day.  To-morrow,  I  lunch  at  Spencer's, 
make  a  parting  call  on  the  little  Oppenheims  (at 
Triibner's)  and  have  a  farewell  evening  at  the 
'orrid  'Uxleys'.  Last  evening  I.  spent  with  Ralston, 
and  he  says  that  Huxley  spoke  to  him  about  me  in 
'terms  of  the  warmest  affection.' 

"  Lord  Arthur  Russell  got  me  into  the  House  of 
Commons  yesterday  afternoon,  and  I  heard  a  great 
debate  about  nothing  —  tempest  in  a  teapot.  Saw 
Disraeli. 

11 1  want  you  to  meet  me  in  New  York  —  I  shall 
be  very  much  disappointed  if  you  don't. 

"  I  weigh  192!!" 


Glory  Hallelujah!! 

Book  done!! 
Coming  home!!! 
Love  to  the  bairns!!!! 
Meet  me  —  in  New  York!!!!! 


Amen! 


END  OF  VOLUME  I 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


MAY  5     1971 


x 

I  H0| 


50m-l,'69(J5643s8)2373 — 3A,1 


